


born to be alone

by softseokies



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Drug cartels, Drugs, Gen, M/M, Merlin is a dad, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Panic Attacks, References to Drugs, Rivals to Lovers, Roxy Is a Good Bro, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn, Sort Of, Spies, Undercover Missions, as a side effect, but hartwin endgame, but not rly, dad with a tm, eggsy unwin as percival, god i love roxy, harry hart as galahad, ish, its basically a spy novel, just a bit, linear timeline, non romance centric, oh btw, reference to cartels, spy AU, theyre not enemies, yes thats a brief thing, yes yall gonna suffer, youll see - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:34:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 33,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28983438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softseokies/pseuds/softseokies
Summary: ------Eggsy and Harry have drastically different mission styles.Chaos ensues. But so does other things?or;the mission where they try to save the world from economical and social turmoil through a drug bust, but they also develop a little something something along the way. rivalry may or may not get in the way, but life and death sure as hell does. oh also, merlin and roxy are great supports.
Relationships: Harry Hart | Galahad/Gary "Eggsy" Unwin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	born to be alone

**Author's Note:**

> before we start, special thanks to delta for first listening to my brainrot when i first came up with the idea after they got me into the movies!! thank you for being there since the very start, i love you so much aaaaaaaaaaaaaa
> 
> special thanks as well to evi, who got most of my scream yelling dms on discord, as well as andre and emilie for being great people :'D y'all are truly the real pogs for giving me support on this thing even tho y'all only know half of the shit i'm talking about
> 
> anyway, so im back after like, a year. 2020 was rough, so was having to stay home for online classes, home sucks ass. and yes, this is my first time in my 5 years of writing fanfics throughout various platforms and fandoms that i wrote something >10k, and im surprised it's not a bts fic :'D what i'm trying to say here is english isn't actually my first language so im sorry if anything ruins your reading experience
> 
> started this fic in mid december 2020, fell in love with kingsman yada yada yada and boom, a specific thing i wanted that i wrote bc i can. writing this was Mega Fun, even tho its like hell sometimes bc i look at the word count and go "haha this is fine" but god if this wasn't the most fulfilling thing ive done throughout my """sem break""", all bc i wanted a very specific story in my mind lmaooo
> 
> im already starting to write a bts kingsman fic by the time i post this. it's gonna be korean kingsman with a whole different kind of worldbuilding, so im really excited for that. if any armys actually read this then leave me a comment so i can spam purple hearts <3
> 
> enjoy!
> 
> title from Lovesick Girls by Blackpink

_“Percival, you’ve got company to your 6, you might wanna start acting less stiff and mingle with the others.”_

“Right on, Merlin, just give me a second.”

The party is just as stuffy as any other party Eggsy has been to. It’s full of uptight rich people who really are here not for fun, but for the connections. He’d take going to a party in any of those ratty little apartments with too much smoke and shitty booze rather than acting nice to everyone here any day of the week, and goddamn if he doesn’t need a joint to just cool off now.

The mission is simple, blend in with the crowd until he can talk his way through to his target, which he will then start a bit of a proposal to bring the drug lord’s business to the rest of Europe, offering lots of money to really nail it through, then uncover the entire drug ring’s secrets and operations before moving on to the next phase.

Step one is to just, well, _talk_. With Merlin’s warning already given, Eggsy immediately starts to approach a small group of people, discussing oil trade up in the Middle East, and he pretends to care, continuing his façade as just a young and successful businessman who’s just looking for something worth his time and money to invest in.

Step two is then try to determine the important people who can slowly bring him closer into the target’s little inner circle, which is easy enough once he expresses some form of interest in the topic of discussion and butter them up enough to have them refer him to the next person.

Once he’s repeated enough of Step two, the final step is to just talk to the drug lord himself, and get himself involved in the inner workings of the organization.

Which didn’t go as smoothly as planned.

You see, what was initially a ‘he’, turned out to be a ‘she’, and apparently she was upset enough at how her husband had kept unknowingly let in a bunch of people who had secret agendas of their own in attempting to take over the organization for themselves, she had sent her own people after him, which resulted in her causing his miserable demise.

Her words, not Eggsy’s.

With that in mind, Eggsy had to form a new plan in his head as he had a nice chat over a drink with her. He still brings the offer up, but is very quickly denied.

“You see, Mr Kingsley, just an offer of money isn’t really doable. After all, the Red Dragon has enough of that, and definitely is making much more. Money doesn’t tell much about someone, Red Dragon is working towards a larger goal than just growth, and I’m sure someone of your status would understand, yeah?”

Eggsy clenches his jaw. _Fuck_ , he doesn’t have much of an idea on how to proceed. He needs to make it, that is literally his only objective for this mission and he isn’t about to fuck it up.

“Well, is there anything I can do to prove to you I don’t have whatever agenda you’re thinking I have?”

“I’m afraid not, Mr Kingsley. You would have to prove it to me yourselves, I can’t just be giving out the secret to gaining my trust like that, can’t I?”

Eggsy sighs, he really doesn’t want to leave, but he’d have to. Go back to HQ and see what the others have, before giving it another try, though it probably wouldn’t happen until the next year before an opportunity like this would present itself.

“What about I suggest a better proposal, Miss Hwang?”

Eggsy visibly stiffens at the new voice, and soon, he feels a hand rest on his right shoulder.

“And who you might be?”

“Gary Thompson, I’m the one that brought this little chap into the family business.”

_God fucking dammit, Galahad._

Eggsy tries his best to not lose his composure, keeps his act up and lets Galahad do the talking. Merlin must’ve sent him in after realizing Eggsy isn’t able to hold the fort on his own.

Eggsy’s usual style is to just hardball his way into it, desperate to get the intel he needed, stubbornness winning through all rationality, and actually succeed at the end, despite completely derailing from any original plans. He’d actually been half tempted to just continue bringing offers to the table until the drug lord agrees. But he knows deep down it’s not gonna work, because anyone with a brain slightly bigger than the size of a pea would’ve realized that him trying so hard means he does have an ulterior motive, after all.

And so here he is, being shoved away while Harry – _Galahad_ , takes the spotlight and salvages the mission before it’s a complete wreck.

“Well, tell me about that proposal, Mr Thompson.”

Eggsy hates it, so much.

\---------- 

_It started as something a little bit like this._

_Eggsy was just going about his usual night, that was having too much to drink, and stealing from people who had even more to drink. He managed to stumble into a bar and nicked himself two whole wallets without starting a fight, then slither out. He’d have been able to go back home, if not because of a sudden umbrella handle coming up to take him into a chokehold._

_Turns out, he had stolen the wrong man’s wallet that night. Or, right man’s wallet, depend on how one might view the events that followed._

_Eggsy never went down with a fight. Despite his drunken state, he managed to hold himself up decently before ultimately falling under the power of a stun needle._

_“You fight well, lad, but try not to steal people’s shit in the future, yeah? Might just end up costing your life.”_

_That was the last thing Eggsy heard before passing out that night._

_In true Eggsy Unwin nature, he’d done exactly the opposite of what the man had said, given his situation at home, which leads to Eggsy unfortunately landing himself in a bit of trouble the very next week._

_He had planned to just do a usual pickpocketing night at the bar, but was immediately caught after some drunk patrons shoved him a bit too hard and his body, in turn, was pushed against the man he_ _was supposed to steal from._

_The man was not in a good mood that night, it seemed, because he had figured Eggsy was trying to steal from him, and pulled out a gun to fire a shot at the ceiling._

_Well, talk about choosing the wrong people, huh._

_The rest happened in a flash. People screaming and scurrying out the bar, the man’s goons making sure no one dares to alert the authorities, as Eggsy dodging and blocking each shot with whatever he managed to find, with his life literally depending on it._

_Just as Eggsy hit himself against a table and fell, he realized he had no chance, and was prepared for his demise, he squeezed his eyes shut and prepared for the gunshot._

_But the universe decided to change his fate._

_When he opened his eyes, he saw an umbrella shielding him from the bullet, and there was someone above the table holding it. Eggsy immediately crawled away, finding cover behind a table in a booth._

_There was a man in a tailored suit facing against the other man and a few of his goons, with sharp reflexes in delivering punches and hits and_ holy shit did he just shoot something out of that fucking umbrella??? _Eggsy watched on with bated breath, didn’t even dare question how one tall and lanky looking guy managed to take down 5 men at once. He crawled out after the guy finished, the situation already seeming to be safe._

_“Didn’t I tell you to not steal anymore shit that might cost you your life, lad?”_

_Eggsy didn’t have the energy nor voice in him to respond._

_“And it seems my Friday night drink is once again, interrupted.”_

_Eggsy scooted back into the booth he was taking cover in as the man slowly stepped closer._

_“Well why don’t you just change your Friday night drink bar then,” Eggsy questioned._

_“I just prefer the beer here. Now if you’ll excuse me—”_

_The man fiddled with the watch on his wrist for a few seconds before aiming it at Eggsy, to which Eggsy immediately stiffened and raised his hands in surrender._

_“No, please, I won’t say a thing,” Eggsy begged._

_“Unfortunately, it’s protocol, can’t risk anything, and it won’t hurt.”_

_“Ask literally anyone, I’ve never grassed anyone up, I swear.”_

_Time seemed to freeze for a solid minute, before the man lowered his hand and fiddled with the watch again, and Eggsy breathed a sigh of relief._

_“I hope we don’t run into each other again, lad. Too many of the same people who won’t hesitate to take their chances at the slightest offence directed to them. And please, let me enjoy my Friday night drink in peace.”_

_The man started to walk away, and Eggsy scrambled to stand up._

_“Can I at least have a name?”_

_The man froze._

_“You can call me Merlin. Try not to get into too much trouble now, Gary.”_

_Eggsy went home empty-handed, but that might be for the better after all. He might have a million questions about how the guy knew his real name in the first place, but that would all be for another day._

\----------

They have 2 months.

Eggsy really, really hates where the plan has spiralled off to, but he knows it's really just for the better.

“Stop pulling that face, Percival, you know it’s the only way we have that’s not waiting for a whole year before getting the chance to even talk to her again.”

“Shut up, Galahad.”

“Well, I wouldn’t have had to intervene if Phuket didn’t happen last year, you know that.”

God, Eggsy wants to wipe that look off of Harry’s face so, fucking, bad. Harry knows damn well that Eggsy hates talking about Phuket, yet here he is. 

“Well I’m more than capable of handling the situation back there on my own, thank you very much. You know damn well too if I could handle Phuket, I could’ve handled whatever that was back there.”

“Oh, I’d like to see you handle it, because we both know you don’t have much of an idea on how to proceed because as usual, you didn’t care to remember the backup plan at all.”

“Save it, Harry. I don’t need more of your shit. One more word about Phuket and I’m off this mission.”

The car stops in front of the tailor shop, and Eggsy gets off first, wishing to just be done and go home and have a good night’s rest already.

He takes a trip to Merlin’s lab, and finds Merlin and Roxy in there, going over some plans on the hologram display. He doesn’t interrupt them or announce his presence, merely finds a chair to make himself comfortable.

It’s become a somewhat common thing for Eggsy to follow Merlin around ever since he first started training as a Kingsman back then, even more so after his rivalry with Harry had been established. Merlin, while still a man of business, often offered a friend in him for Eggsy whenever he needed, whether it be after a petty bicker with Harry, or feeling extremely guilty for letting someone innocent die under his watch.

Of course, when the pair had noticed Eggsy’s presence in the room, they merely acknowledge him with a slight nod, before going back to chattering about their matter at hand. Eggsy allows himself to just fold completely into the chair, letting their chatter wash by him as he thinks over the party.

See, what he hates the most about the entire thing wasn’t that he couldn’t think faster or remember the backup plan, but the fact that Harry is right.

Harry is always right, but so is Eggsy most the time. In this case though, Harry is right.

There is no doubt more experience under Harry’s belt, considering he joined 15 years before Eggsy did, but that also makes him much more of the uptight asshole who will always only play by the rules and never improvise when they’re at a shorter end.

There are countless times where Eggsy was right, but this is just one of those times where as much as he hates admitting it, he’s wrong.

Merlin snaps him out of his thoughts, and Eggsy belatedly realizes Roxy is gone, it’s just them, but it’s also 3am, and he’s not sleepy at all.

“I figure you’re pretty bummed that Galahad took the spotlight again?”

Merlin has a bit of a playful smile on him, clearly not taking the situation as seriously as Eggsy does.

“Like you wouldn’t be if you were me,” Eggsy quips back.

“Maybe, but you just hate that he’s right.”

“Great, now you’re gonna be right too.”

Merlin simply purses his lips and sighs, turning to grab two cups for some water for the both of them.

“You’ve always been like that since day one, stubborn as all hell, but that exact same stubbornness is still what makes you different and able to survive, isn’t it?”

Merlin sets the cup down and drags a nearby chair to sit close to Eggsy.

“Like I’ve always said, you two are the same, and two positives don’t exactly attract, but they do so out of nature, to protect themselves and the other.”

Eggsy remains silent like a petulant child, keeping his mouth busy with the mug of tea to his lips.

“You think I could’ve worked something out back there?” Eggsy asks, voice smaller, less confident.

Merlin merely gives him a brief smile in return. “Only you would know, Eggsy. Come on, let’s get you home, debrief is at 12 tomorrow.”

Eggsy sighs and rolls his eyes at Merlin’s answer. He helps to put the cups away while Merlin tidies up his workplace, before the both of them leave for the night.

At least Eggsy feels just a bit lighter when he leaves the tailor shop that night.

\----------

_“Shoot the dog.”_

_Eggsy froze._

_“Shoot the dog, Eggsy.”_

_The gun was in Merlin’s hand, stretched out towards Eggsy. Eggsy stared at the gun, then stared back at Merlin, confusion building up the more he tried to process Merlin’s words._

_“What the fuck do you mean?”_

_“I meant exactly what I said.”_

_Reluctantly, Eggsy took the gun from Merlin’s hands._

_JB, unaware of the situation, sat still in place, big eyes darting around, while Eggsy sweated all over and hand trembled as he held and aimed the gun at JB._

_How the fuck did he even end up here?_

_“Go ahead, Eggsy.”_

_Eggsy remained in place, hand still trembling as tears began welling in his eyes._

_He wasn’t sure how long he stood there for, but it was enough for Merlin to draw another gun and aim it at JB too._

_“I don’t have all day, Eggsy. Shoot the dog or I shoot.”_

_“Fine, fucking shoot then, let’s see who’s faster.”_

_Eggsy had turned his aim to Merlin instead, looking at him dead in the eye._

_“It’s an order, Eggsy.”_

_Deep down, Eggsy knew it must be part of the test, but he couldn’t be sure, and he sure as hell wasn’t betting JB’s life to see if it’s true._

_“God damn you, Merlin.”_

_He didn’t want JB to die by someone else’s hands just because he was too much of a wuss to follow orders._

_With a scream. Eggsy took his aim at JB and fired._

_The next thing Eggsy knew was feeling extremely lightheaded and he’s falling back to the chair. He then registers the sound of JB’s frantic barking._

_“Welcome to Kingsman, Percival.”_

_Eggsy didn’t even hear those words as he’d crouched down to pick JB up into his arms, as he started openly sobbing into the tiny dog’s body._

_If Merlin noticed that Eggsy had aimed his gun slightly to the side right before he shot, he doesn’t comment on it at all._

\----------

“ _Get ready, Lupo is arriving in just 3 minutes,_ ” Merlin’s voice filters through their comms. 

“Alright, Merlin,” Eggsy fiddles with his tie and suit, trying to calm himself down.

Harry seems awfully calm; with the way he’s sat at the end of the long table, staring at the door as if this entire meeting isn’t one of the most important out of the many meetings done over the last two weeks.

_“Hey, you’re gonna be fine, you both have done great so far, this guy is just slightly more high profile than the rest,”_ Roxy speaks through the glasses, and Eggsy relaxes just a bit more.

“Thanks, Rox, don’t know why I’m so nervous, might be the caffeine.”

_“Told you that you should cut that shit out. Now, focus on the mission.”_

With one final puff of breath, Eggsy takes a seat next to Harry, and tries to focus on the plan for the day. It will be the same as other meetings, with a good amount of negotiating and offering of money, which will then end with a deal, where the group will be under the Red Dragon.

Of course, that’s just what’s on the surface.

The door opens, and Lupo walks in with several goons by his side. He seems way too chipper as he greets Eggsy and Harry, sitting down with a smile.

“I’ve never heard about you lot from around here,” Lupo says.

“Well, we’ve mostly laid low, got different people to do the work for us. Money still goes to us though, but now we want to expand,” Eggsy explains with a shrug.

It’s easy enough to just spit back out what they’ve memorized about their background as Lupo throws some more questions at them. The real part is when they begin to negotiate the money, and of course, power. Everything is mostly planned out, and with the right sum, people like Lupo eventually agree.

“But what do you two get out of it by splitting so much with me, hm?”

Eggsy looks at Harry, who’s also looking back at him.

Well, this is the part he’s good at, at least.

“You do know we’re working with Red Dragon, yeah?”

Lupo nods.

“And you must also know of what we are planning to do with the Dragon’s Egg?”

Lupo nods again. Eggsy stands, adjusting his suit and walks towards Lupo to stand near him, though he’s facing somewhere else.

“We’re all in this business together, and in the end, we all get the money. Gary and I aren’t going to be short of anything, so why not just… share?”

“Well, you see, Mr Kingsley,” Lupo stands up. “People who do stuff like this often want something in return. So, what’s the catch in this?”

Eggsy turns to face Lupo as he stands even closer. “You have my word that there’s no catch, dear brother. My family values loyalty and relationships much more than anything, you can keep that 70% share, and we’ll all be happy, Red Dragon’s new product gets pushed, the pharma division gets their cut, and we all are winners here.”

Eggsy finishes off with a grin, which is mirrored by Lupo.

Harry clears his throat, catching both Eggsy and Lupo’s attention, “If we have come to an agreement, I suppose we can shake our hands and call it a deal?”

Lupo holds his hand out first, and Eggsy takes it.

“Welcome to the Red Dragon.”

\---------- 

_“I look like some punk off the streets.”_

_“That’s exactly what we’re going for!”_

_Roxy ignored all of the bickering and continued to put on the temporary tattoos on Harry’s knuckles. Eggsy had told them that Harry looked way too posh to be a punk, so Harry had gone to Kingsman for the next 3 days without any product in his hair. Then Merlin suggested some tattoos on his face too, which was met by a very loud and firm ‘no’ followed by a very (not) serious threat of shooting anyone who dares to touch his face had Eggsy doubling over in laughter and a rather unamused Merlin, who just gestured for Roxy to just get the job done._

_“These sunglasses will replace your usual ones, and your lighter doubles as the grenade like our usual ones, just toggle the button right at the side to activate it,” Merlin explained, while handing the items to Harry._

_“As for you. Eggsy, this necklace can be opened, and you’ll find a couple of throwing blades in there, should you land yourselves in a messy situation. They’re all coated in poison, so be careful with them.”_

_“Sick!” Eggsy exclaimed, drawing out the syllable as he examined the necklace pendant. It looks like any other wannabe rapper’s accessory, but with a darker twist._

_“Don’t you think giving him those blades would just be dangerous? He’s barely been here for more than 8 months,” Harry grunted._

_“I can assure you that Percival is more than capable of handling himself,” Merlin replied._

_“Yeah, Galahad,” Eggsy retorted in a mocking tone. “Have fun being the boring punk!”_

_Harry rolled his eyes._

_“You know, Eggsy, if you wanna be such a cool punk, I think you should take the lighter, smoking does give you punk style points,” said Roxy, slightly amused by the situation._

_Eggsy took a moment to think about it, and then exchanged the necklace for the lighter, which doesn’t exactly do anything to Harry, who merely raised an eyebrow as he examined the necklace._

_“All done, boys.”_

_Roxy set her tools down, and allowed Harry to look at the temporary tattoos on his skin. They looked real, but they would just fade on their own in 12 hours. They needed to blend in with the crowd at the underground party going on at night, and having these tattoos was Eggsy’s idea, which somehow gained the approval of even Arthur himself, and Merlin agreeing that it was a good idea during the meeting too._

_“I still think that face tat would look super cool, just sayin’,” Eggsy chuckled, pulling on his (very own) bomber jacket and checking himself in the mirror._

_“You’re just adamant on wanting me to look like a fool.”_

_“Nuh uh, it’s called adapting to the environment, Galahad, most people who go to these parties would want to look like a discount famous rapper with the same face tat anyways.”_

_Eggsy gave Harry a challenging look, which was reciprocated, and it soon became a staring contest, until Harry uttered a very simple: “_ No _.”_

_Eggsy groaned, and walked off to the other side of the room to get himself ready, mumbling about Harry being no fun and all, while Roxy watched from the side, humored by the situation._

_If Harry got asked why he doesn’t have a face tattoo yet by other punks during the night, Eggsy jumped on every opportunity to call him a coward. While it was effective in evading the question, Harry still was annoyed by the antics._

_“Well our friend here doesn’t have anything, not even ear piercings, so who’s the coward here?”_

_At least Harry still managed to get just a bit of a win for himself when Eggsy started sputtering with a bewildered look on his face_

\---------- 

The past few months have been nothing short of exhausting for the Kingsman. The case of the Red Dragon’s plan on the Dragon’s Egg distribution across major regions in the world has taken loads of work for everyone, but especially Eggsy, who has been in the front and center of all the operations. He pitches the idea to every major drug lord, act all smug about it, talk about governments giving their pharma division all the money for the treatment, then it’s payday for everyone.

Of course, their ‘operations’ and ‘sales’ in the European region is exactly like a music company buying their own artists’ music to push them onto the charts, but in this case, it’s way more complicated. Besides having to pull in the numbers, they have to pull the manpower to shut the people who knew too much.

Oftentimes it meant killing off the leaders of the groups, but it sometimes meant loading up on amnesia needles to shut some mid-level minion up about the situation, if they knew enough of it.

Neither Eggsy nor Harry would have to be on site, considering they are playing the role of the big and mysterious powers behind the European division after all, which would be easy enough, until they soon realized this drew a whole lot of attention to them and many, many shitty assassination attempts happening over the course of time.

A plan was very quickly formed, which basically involved the pair having to travel discreetly and possibly relocating temporarily to HQ’s spare rooms, which was pretty easily agreed by them both. Eggsy had a bit of trouble following the first protocol, and is often reprimanded for it.

Eggsy had gone out to get some kibble for JB, when he was dragged into a ratty back alley and almost beaten to a pulp. He still had a dagger on him, and was able to take all of them down, but was still hurt in the process.

“We have a thing called grocery delivery, what the fuck were you on about?”

Eggsy crossed his arms like a petulant child, glaring back at Harry.

“Why the fuck do you even care,” Eggsy mumbles.

“Why do I care, really? If you had actually died back there, or your cover somehow got blown, this mission is fucked, and we’ve put too much time in for it to be failing right now!”

Merlin, while visibly upset at Eggsy, managed to keep a calmer composure. He also has a hand on Harry’s arm to try and ground him. He gestures for Harry to calm down, before stepping up to Eggsy.

“What Harry said is true too, but we’re also not hoping to lose you as a friend, a colleague, a fellow Kingsman, Percival.”

Eggsy grumbles at Merlin. “Fine, I’m sorry, I just wanted some fresh air while getting stuff for JB, figured it’d be killing two birds with one stone anyway.”

“Well this is more like the stone killing no birds and instead hitting you straight back in your eye,” Harry retorts.

Merlin sighs. “You’ll recover soon enough. Until then, Harry and I will hold up the front. We’ll create some records of you going abroad for a vacation or something.”

Eggsy didn’t suffer too bad of a damage, just a few cuts from a knife and a bit of a shattered bone when one of the thugs tried to break his entire arm, and maybe some emotional exhaustion that comes with every mission they do. He’ll need the break, but feeling useless in a time when they’re working on one of these extremely high-profile cases is the worst thing he could ever want right now.

Merlin drops by every day to check on his healing process, and brief him on any progress if there’s any. Roxy sneaks in with little snacks and help to fill up JB’s bowl sometimes, and if she has the time, they bust out the Switch and start playing some games. Harry is nowhere to be seen, and Eggsy… doesn’t quite know how to feel. It wouldn’t be the first time after all, and maybe he’s alright with it.

On one hand, he thinks it might be for the best, with the mission still ongoing and Harry practically having to cover for both of their tasks, and if Harry were to come in here, they would start fighting anyway. On another hand, Eggsy would enjoy Harry’s company, even if it’s just for a bit of playful bickering.

One thing that sucks about being stuck to a hospital bed is that you get bored quite easily, and Eggsy soon realizes just how much of his day is spent with any other person, especially Harry these days, now that they’re doing the mission as a pair up front. He wonders how Harry is holding up.

Part of Eggsy feels bad for causing the trouble for basically everyone, but part of him feels completely justified with wanting some fresh air and thinks the one time he goes out is also the one time he almost gets killed is just sheer bad luck, or these thugs are trying way too hard to get to the top of the food chain. If only they knew the truth about the food chain.

He thinks back to what Harry and Merlin said to him. It hurts that Harry seemed to only care about him because of how big of a role he plays in the mission, but it’s the truth. Failing the mission would mean an evil drug empire would thrive while lives are lost whether directly or indirectly caused by Red Dragon themselves.

Blowing his own cover would also mean endangering Kingsman as a whole, and that means every single agent’s life would be on the line. Eggsy knows he is more than capable of protecting himself and the integrity of Kingsman on his own, and perhaps Harry had just over exaggerated the situation, or undermined his capabilities as Percival.

What Merlin said was right too, and it pains Eggsy to think about losing everyone because of a simple mistake, and soon he’s spiralling down those thoughts about the worst scenarios, how because he’d missed one thug running up to him and he’d get stabbed, maybe he’ll be left to bleed out, or it’d be a quick death with a quick twist of the neck or a headshot, but that would be the least of his worries. His friends would be in danger, all because he wanted fresh air and didn’t wanna pay that extra five quid for grocery delivery.

Well, he could also just ask Roxy to do it for free.

Eggsy shakes himself off of those thoughts, refusing to spiral any longer. He lays back down on the bed, and allows JB to stand on his chest.

“Hey there buddy,” Eggsy coos. “What would you do if I’m not around, hm? I know what I’d be like if it’s the other way around.”

Eggsy continues to baby-talk JB that he doesn’t notice the door opening and Harry walking in. It’s only when Harry had come close enough to the bed that Eggsy realizes his presence, acknowledging the man with a slight look of surprise on his face.

“And what are you doing here?”

“A man can’t come and visit his colleague after a whole week of not doing so?”

Harry had brought in a bottle of wine, alongside two glasses, which he sets down on the sliding table.

“I see someone is being a little naughty,” Eggsy smirks, eyeing the bottle of wine as Harry loosens his tie and unbuttons his suit.

“It’s called destressing, and being a decent friend,” Harry says, grabbing the bottle and opening it.

“I do recall the doctor very heavily suggesting that I shouldn’t be consuming alcohol to help speed up the healing.”

“Oh, come on, you really wanna be all hoity toity? It’s just a bit of broken bone, a glass or two won’t make much of a difference now, would it?”

Harry fills both of the glasses, and offers one to Eggsy, to which they immediately down right after a tiny clink of their glasses.

“So, how’s the mission going for you?”

Eggsy sets the glass down and leans back, and he looks over to Harry, recognizing just that look of pure fatigue on his face. He wonders if Harry had done that thing again, where he refuses to sleep and stays up going through his plans until ass o’clock, and promptly looks like he’d smoked 3 whole joints right before he stepped into the room during briefing.

“Everyone thinks you’re in Dubai for a nice bit of vacation, some think you’re there for business, and Miss Hwang hasn’t really shown any signs of suspicion. She will be doing a ‘routine inspection’ meeting in two weeks, which by then, hopefully, you’d have been properly back on your feet.”

“No, no, I mean, for you. Like, do you feel like a pile of dog shit and wishing you’d just disappear into the ground?”

Harry huffs out a laugh at that, pouring himself some more wine, which when offered to Eggsy, was declined.

“Pretty much, yeah. I don’t know how you do that, the whole ‘ooh look at me, I’m Sam Kingsley, the only son of the family, and was brought into the family’s business by that old chap Gary and I know sooooo many things, and I’m soooo charming and smooth I can talk these idiots into buying a pencil I had just used’. I’m not as spontaneous as you, so there have been a few close calls to these people flipping their shit in my face, I’ll tell you that much.”

“I mean, they are idiots, they literally will say yes if you just convince them properly, or stick a wad of cash in their mouth and they’ll shut up,” Eggsy chuckles.

Harry gives a sigh and a humourless laugh. “Sad thing is that sometimes these people seem to listen to you more than me, even if we do speak the same thing.”

Eggsy purses his lips. “I suppose I am much more charming, blessed by this beautiful face and suave attitude, no?”

“Don’t get cocky now, you’re still no better than me at tactical skills, and you’re known for being a bit reckless.”

“Pfft, tactical skills won’t be much of a use when you’re trying to talk your way through the ranks.”

“You seem to forget that I was the one who saved your ass that first night.”

Eggsy pouts. “I can’t believe you’re bullying the one who’s still lying in a hospital bed.”

Harry rolls his eyes, turning to down the rest of his wine before setting the glass down.

“Well, you better be up on your feet then, so I can bully you more, I know Merlin secretly enjoys watching the show.”

Eggsy huffs a laugh, and watches as Harry gathers his things before leaving.

“Don’t do that stupid thing where you stay up and stare at Merlin’s plans all night!”

Harry pauses, and turns to look at Eggsy.

“Why would I? You’re here and you’ve taken all the stupid with you anyways.”

\----------

_“You’re a fucking idiot, Galahad, do you know that?”_

_Eggsy yelled, frustration building up as he tries to handle the situation. Shots rained upon them as they try their best to seek cover._

_“How was I supposed to know that those nutjobs had the guts to try and open the briefcase?”_

_“They’re thugs, Galahad, of course they will find every opportunity to steal shit! You’d better feel lucky that I convinced them to let me keep mine!”_

_Eggsy fumbled for the briefcase and typed in the long chain of security code, then took out a freeze grenade. There were too many of those robots out there, with probably more on the way, the pair needed something quick that would be able to allow them to buy time for situations like, well, this._

_The initial plan was simple enough, walk in to the hotel, stay in the lounge for a bit, then make a break for the manager’s office while the man talks to either one of them. One retrieves the key card needed for the manager’s lab, and one continues to pretend like they know about the science stuff they’d probably chat about._

_Of course, they also had to look as non-suspicious as possible, which then led to Harry trusting the suitcase to the guards at the front door of the lounge, while Eggsy had managed to sweettalk his way to letting the guard keep his briefcase, blabbering about it being way too important to be kept at the lockers._

_The situation wouldn’t be as sticky as it was if the tools needed to break into the safe and disable all of these robot soldiers weren’t all in Harry’s suitcase, which had been destroyed because the thugs couldn’t resist nicking a few wads of cash for themselves_

_Eggsy disarmed the grenade by unscrewing the perfume bottle’s cap, and then threw it right in the middle of the group. With a quick count of three, they both come out of their cover, and made their break for the front door._

_The situation only escalted up until this point about 5 minutes ago, when a thug broke through that front door, with a bloodied face and pointing directly at the direction of Eggsy and Harry. That was when Eggsy realized they were in deep shit, and his brain immediately started to turn for a solution._

_‘_ Hey, those were the two posh snobs who broke into the base in Galway the other day!’ _One of the men who was standing by the manager’s side yelled out the second all eyes had turned onto both of them._

_That was five minutes ago, the present is much different._

_The benefit of once being a street kid is that you will be in enough messy situations that forces you to improvise better than the average person, which is why Eggsy had been able to shake off all the robot soldiers by hiding in the electric generator room in a secluded corner of the building’s first floor._

_“New plan, we gotta somehow scale up the walls from outside, following the air conditioning fans outside. Those infrared scanners won’t be able to tell much of a difference between the heat signals of the air from the fans and us, so it should be fine. Then, we’re gonna hardball into that office and get in and out within 2 minutes, which should be just around the time those robot motherfuckers to get from the bottom floors to the office.”_

_Harry looked at Eggsy with a look of disbelief. “Are you out of your fucking mind? We gotta wait for backup! We are outnumbered by a hundred times here, and we don’t even have the right things to get through the safe!”_

_“Which is why we’re gonna use this,” Eggsy pulled out a blast grenade. “This thing would disrupt the heat signals just fine, but we’re gonna have to pray to the gods that this doesn’t ruin too much of the key card too.”_

_“Easy enough for you to say—”_

_Eggsy grabbed Harry’s arm and forced him to look him in the eye. “Listen here, Galahad, we’ve got approximately 5 minutes until those robots figure out this is the one place they haven’t checked, so it’s now or never, and it’s a long way up there so I’d suggest saving the energy for the climbing, now go!”_

_Both of them snuck out of the hotel through the back door. With Eggsy taking the lead, they both started climbing up the pipes and ledges right beside the air conditioning fans. The building itself is tall, and it took a whole lot of sheer willpower and time before the both of them even managed to get halfway up. If Eggsy felt nauseous to the point he almost slipped right off a ledge, he didn’t let it show at all._

_They didn’t talk, nor did they do anything besides climbing, reserving every bit of energy for the climb. They took a short break, then continued moving on._

_Eventually, the floor-to-ceiling glass window came to vision, and soon Eggsy was able to smash right through it, the pair making for a swift entry. The safe in question was located immediately, Eggsy held the grenade in his hand, bit his lip in determination, and threw the grenade._

_The blast of the grenade was enough to blow up basically half the room, with a gaping hole formed into the floor. Both men sprung to action, digging through the debris to find the key card._

_Eggsy and Harry may have been quick, but the first robot had already found them, and Harry had to quickly take care of that before resuming his search._

_One down would only mean more to come, which became Eggsy’s main motivation, swearing under his breath every time he uncovered a piece of debris to find nothing underneath. Harry had prepared himself to start fighting, checking his gun and watch to make sure he would be able to take on the robots while Eggsy did the searching._

_“Fucking finally! I’ve got it, let’s go!”_

_Eggsy stepped out from the pile of debris, and headed towards the window, Harry following suit. As they were about to climb down, shots started firing and Eggsy quickly transformed the briefcase into a shield._

_“We’re fucked,” Harry groaned._

_“We just need to get out of here through the same route,” Eggsy grunted, voice straining as he held the shield against the rain of shots._

_“No, Percival, look.”_

_Eggsy looked at the direction Harry was pointing towards. Sure enough, a group of robots are climbing up the walls, up the exact trail where they were both climbing up before._

_“Well, shit.”_

_“Do we still have that freeze grenade?”_

_“Only one, your briefcase had two as well. I’ve still got a blast grenade, though.”_

_Harry paused, gears turning in his head, before looking up at Eggsy, “We’ll have to jump.”_

_Eggsy’s face immediately morphed into one of disbelief, mouth turning into an O shape. “What? We don’t have chutes, and we’re literally on the 36_ _th_ _floor!”_

_“Trust me. You throw the blast at the ones at the door, then I’ll throw the freeze at the ones outside there. We’ll throw at the count of three, then we immediately head over and jump. Are we clear?”_

_“No because we’re gonna die if we jump from this fucking height!”_

_Harry paid no mind to Eggsy’s words. He grabbed the blast grenade and shoved the freeze grenade into Eggsy’s right hand._

_“Alright, on the count of three. You have to trust me, Eggsy.”_

_The rest happened in a blur, with Eggsy having no choice but to trust Harry on this. They both disarmed the grenade at two, and made their break once they had thrown the grenades. There was no shortage of screaming as Eggsy and Harry shot themselves out from the window of the 36_ _th_ _floor, and Eggsy was certain he would be dying the stupidest death from a mission like this._

_Which, just as Eggsy had started to see his entire life flash before his eyes, was when he landed on a giant floating parade balloon._

_There wasn’t much time for the initial shock, just Eggsy’s instincts taking over and staying still while whatever else happened on the ground managed to get him back down. One second after he got onto the ground, Harry had immediately grabbed his hand, and off they ran towards a yellow coloured taxi._

_“Got the key?”_

_Harry gave out an affirmative answer. Roxy was driving, and she spared no time in flooring it the second the car doors shut. They drove for a while, and only stopped once they were absolutely sure no one had been tailing behind, and no sign of suspicious entities on their radar._

_Eggsy was still in a bit of a dissociative state when they entered the debrief room in the Statesman HQ. He still couldn’t believe he jumped from a tall ass building and managed to survive just because a fucking open rehearsal for a balloon parade was going on. Harry was crazy enough to suggest that, and that in itself was already enough of a shocker._

_When Eggsy confronted Harry about it two days later, the latter man never exactly explained why._

_“It seemed like the only way for us to come out of there alive.”_

\-----------

It took them eight whole months.

Eight whole months of slowly building this little faux drug empire within Europe, eight whole months of daily work from 9 in the morning till whatever time they decide to conk the fuck out on that day. Everyone is frayed at the edges, but especially more so for Eggsy and Harry.

While Merlin and Arthur are their usual main intel support, Eggsy and Harry had to be on their own most of the time due to the fact that Red Dragon is quite literally everywhere, and that means people that aren’t technically under the Kingsley cartel, which just further translates to the pair having to walk on an even finer line if they don’t want their identities compromised.

Which is why when Miss Hwang’s call coming in one fateful evening had Eggsy loosening his tie and shucking off his jacket the second the call ended, and he promptly dropped onto the floor and curled up like nothing in the world mattered.

_“Can’t help but notice the way your name has grown lately, why don’t we have a nice chat face to face? Next Wednesday, I’ll have a table reserved at the Continental,”_ Her words, not Eggsy’s.

Merlin’s slightly worried tone do come from the glasses a moment later, thinking Eggsy had somehow overworked himself so much that he’d collapsed in his office.

“I’m fine, just let me pretend like the world doesn’t exist for, like, the next 48 hours at the very least.”

The briefing next afternoon is just as usual, except now that there’s a big break, all the agents present in the London HQ discuss just what should be done following the next steps on this case. Security on Eggsy and Harry are ramped up, with even more trackers and hidden cams placed onto their suits.

They get about three days of break, to which Eggsy had decided to just hole up in the flat and curl up with a bowl of whatever store-brand snack they had at home and watching shitty spy movies just so he could point out how bad certain parts are. His mother had called him being worse than a child, just spending his free time as a couch potato instead of doing something nicer and more relaxing.

Which is why when Eggsy had gotten physically dragged out by Harry on the last day of his break, he wasn’t the slightest bit amused. Heck, even his mother had been the one to open the door for Harry and allow him to just carry her son out the house like a bag of rice.

“Loosen up, Eggsy! It’ll do you some good to go do posh man things once in a while!”

Harry had taken them to what seemed to be a beauty salon, and Eggsy had given up on trying to question why here of all places. Harry talks to the receptionist about his reservation while Eggsy stands around, moping like a kicked puppy for no reason.

They change into bathrobes, and the attendant leads them both to another room. There are two flat beds, and the entire room smells of incense, with the kind of lighting that puts your mood at ease instantly illuminating the room as well.

“You drag me out on our last day of break just so we can do a facial?”

While Eggsy looks at Harry with an incredulous expression, Harry seems totally familiar with whatever this situation is. He gets onto the bed easily, and lays down without a second thought.

“A little bit of a facial never hurt anyone, unless you think this is somehow gonna ruin your dignity.”

Eggsy lowers himself on the other bed reluctantly. Two people who seem to be technicians come in, and time seems to fade away as the attendants worked their magic hands on Eggsy’s face. He doesn’t know how long the silence had stretched for, before Eggsy managed to even talk.

“You know, Harry, I don’t know just why are we doing this still, but I’d be fucking lying if I say this isn’t the most relaxed I had ever been,” Eggsy admits, voice sounding just a tad softer than it was before.

“Well if you consider the main benefit, which is you get to have a decent vanity upkeep, I personally feel that the relaxation is just an added bonus, considering you have people having to go through pain for beauty at times,” Harry says, his tone edging on being deadpan serious, but the way his voice had also melted into that same relaxed state tells otherwise.

“And you still insist on being a smartass, huh?”

“It’s called ‘being right’, Eggsy.”

“Oh, shut it, you just absolutely love ticking me off for the sake of it.”

“If you want to see it that way, sure, but shall I remind you who is the one who first tried to steal my show during your very first week?”

Indeed, Eggsy remembers it. It’s pretty funny to think back on, because as much as Eggsy felt the nerves and pressure to perform well as Percival, he couldn’t help but want to be a little cheeky and point out the obvious flaws in one of the briefings he was listening in on, merely as a bit of observation, which then turned into the starting point of this little rivalry between the two of them.

“Well, I wasn’t the one who had dismissed the newbie on his first day.”

“Ah shut it, you know I was busy that day.”

“Mhmm, whatever you say, I distinctly remember you had given Roxy your full attention that same day.”

“Roxy was having genuine questions about her task; you were snooping around because no one had given you anything to do yet.”

“Riiiiight.”

They fall into silence after that, and time seems to fade away with the world again as Eggsy is once again consumed by the feeling of expert hands massaging the cream onto his face. His neck was also massaged at some point, though his brain has melted into a pile of goo for quite some time now, and all he can really think of is imagining himself laying on top of some fluffy clouds for a moment, floating away without a care in the world.

The facial does come to an end eventually. Eggsy and Harry thank their technicians, and they change back to their original clothes before leaving.

“Man, this might be the most refreshed I’ve ever been, like, ever,” Eggsy sighs, content and relaxed.

“Well, I’m glad you enjoyed yourself at the very least.”

“Warn a man next time, will ya? I was totally not prepared for the most relaxing experience in my life.”

“Well, there’s no telling when the mood strikes, but you can certainly come here on your own accord.”

“Yeah, I think I just might.”

\----------

_Eggsy loved chess._

_He didn’t play it very much, just one of those board games that every house had and sometimes he’d pull it out just to play it with his mother, or with himself, pretending to be professional chess players and acting out whatever dramatic scenario his little 7-year old brain could think of._

_He didn’t remember when was the last time he actually played chess, so when one of the politicians invited him for a game during a mission, he put up his best confident front and went with it._

_“Now, Mr King, the game is simple. We play, and if I win, you die.”_

_Tony—the leader of a conservative party— held up the King piece, and showed the bottom of it. There’s a hole that allowed for a tiny bit of silver gleaming, which what Eggsy assumes is a poison dart. The toggle seemed to be right on the tip of the piece’s crown, which meant it would be easy enough for either of them to shoot right as checkmate was announced._

_“And if you win, I’ll fulfil my end of the deal, and you choose if the white King kills.”_

_Eggsy sighed, then braced himself for the game. “Alright then. Shall we start?”_

_They play the old way, with one of those vintage chess clocks that Tony clicked to indicate White to move. Eggsy went for a book move, Knight F3, and then clicked the clock for Black’s turn._

_Eggsy tries desperately to remember all those little moves he’d played against his mother. He didn’t really know anything about chess, never bothered to, and when he was 7 moves in, he realized just how utterly fucked he was, because that would definitely be a checkmate in just a few moves, 2 if he didn’t figure out what to do next._

_Just as he was about to reach for his Knight to go for an attack, Harry’s voice filtered through the glasses._

“Move that pawn on C4, unless you want to keep your light square Bishop trapped forever. Threaten the Bishop that’s about to go for your Queen a little, Castle on the next move.”

_Fuck, okay, fine then, Eggsy had not much of a choice, so he followed whatever Harry had told him to do._

“Your life's on the line here, Percival, now is not the time to blunder.”

_If Eggsy could speak, he’d be throwing smart retorts back right about now._

_2 moves later, Eggsy could visibly see Tony’s confidence slowly melting away, as Eggsy continued to let Harry backseat-driver him throughout the entire game. Eggsy tried his best to even keep up with the pace, the game having been sped up and he’d given up on trying to understand why the move was made, just pretended like he was actually thinking about it for a few more seconds before actually moving the piece._

_“You’ll have a checkmate in 5, more or less,” said Harry, and Eggsy sighed in relief internally._

_Tony seemed to have realized that as well. He played one last move, which allowed for Eggsy to take down the last remaining Bishop from Tony, and then it was a surrender. Tony took the King piece, made sure to empty the dart inside, before flipping it downwards, its silver dart standing on the square where the King had once stood._

_“The white man wins the white man’s game. Very well.”_

_That day, Eggsy secured an incredible amount of intel, which would certainly be enough to expose all of the corruption and crime within the political circle, and it might be the first rays of light for the people of the country since their independence once the dirt was scraped out._

_That day, Eggsy also learned that chess is something you should never ever be rash about, especially when your life's on the line, and one single blunder could end your entire game in less than 10 moves._

\----------

“I’ve never met anyone quite like you two, I hope you know that.”

Eggsy and Harry are in Hilton, secluded into a rather quiet corner of the hotel’s restaurant where not much can be spotted or heard from them without having to be physically close. The table is laden with food, mostly to be shared, as well as a bottle of expensive red wine to go with the food.

“Well, I’ll take that as a compliment, cheers,” Harry smiles and raises his glass, Miss Hwang doing the same in return.

“Oh, I certainly meant it that way,” Miss Hwang says, then takes a sip of her wine. “It’s rather hard to not notice just how far the both of you have come in just these few months, Red Dragon is practically a household name in Europe now!”

The three of them share a laugh, though Eggsy just finds the irony funny, and Harry merely forcing his own.

“I honestly just have to credit most of it to Gary here, really. He’s really the mastermind and I just do whatever he tells me to.”

“Your teamwork is impeccable, as I’ve come to expect. Mr Thompson certainly continued to do well while you were on your little vacation, no?”

Miss Hwang has a bit of a smirk to her tone, suggesting she’s thinking otherwise about Eggsy’s ‘vacation’. Eggsy just can’t resist the opportunity hanging just like that, and so he forms a little backstory in his head.

“Well I’ve certainly did my best, it’s a lot of work when this little bastard’s off to having fun,” Harry teases.

“Ah come on now, I think we all know it wasn’t really a vacation, was it?”

Harry turns to give Eggsy a very subtle questioning look, to which Eggsy merely smirks in return.

“Oh, really now,” Miss Hwang sets her cutlery down, hands on her chin as she leans in. “Why don’t you tell?”

“See, I wasn’t really in Dubai. I may have done a bit of a tour in Dubai for two days, then I had travelled to the States instead.”

A smile stretches across Miss Hwang’s face. “I kind of like where this is going.”

“I hope you do, because I may or may not have spent two weeks gathering some intel and surveying the situation in two major cities, just to get myself started on some rough plans for a certain bit of expansion for, you know, us.”

Eggsy can practically feel Harry staring daggers into him, because of course this was never in today’s plan, and Eggsy just went with it on the fly. Suck it, Harry.

Miss Hwang, upon hearing Eggsy’s words, lit up and clapped her hands in glee. “Does that mean you guys are planning to handle America too?”

“Oh, Miss Hwang, we’re probably looking to take Canada around the same time too,” Eggsy leaned forward in his seat, the smile on his face only fading so he could sip on his wine.

While Eggsy thinks the delighted expression on Miss Hwang’s face and the rest of the afternoon going extremely smoothly is worth the spontaneous decision for his words, Harry thinks otherwise. 

The second they returned back to HQ, Harry had chewed right down on Eggsy.

“We weren’t even supposed to be telling her anything about the Americas yet! That was supposed to be a thing 4 months later, and everything is going off the rails thanks to you!”

Eggsy sighed. “Look, the America plan is happening anyways, so I relayed the information a bit earlier than planned, so what? The opportunity was right there, of course I’d gas her up a little! I didn’t even confirm anything, I just sort of said like ‘hey, we’re thinking about it’ and that’s literally it. It’s called buttering people up, and by doing that I’m pretty sure we’re gonna be able to actually sit right next to her on the ranks pretty fucking soon, because she had a big break in the Southeast lately and of fucking course it’s gonna be easy to just take that opportunity!”

Harry stared at Eggsy. With all that being said in one breath, Eggsy had to catch his breath, and Harry shows signs of relenting.

“Fine, but you’re on your own on the next briefing. I am not gonna cover for your bullshit if any of the agents share the same opinion as I do.”

“At least she gave us these kickass tasting Wife Biscuits from Hong Kong, maybe that’ll cheer them up,” Eggsy shrugs.

When Merlin hears about the info, he merely gives a look of defeat and doesn’t actually think it’s that bad of a move. Sure, they’ll have to plan further because of this, but as Eggsy said, they might even not need to do the whole America part if Miss Hwang trusts them enough by then for them to learn more in order to completely dismantle Red Dragon, inside and out.

Eggsy offers a piece of the biscuit, and Merlin barely acknowledges it. Yeah, he’s gonna have to _really_ make it up to everyone, Merlin doesn’t usually turn down treats.

When the other agents hear about it, however, there are a few groans coming from Bors, who is in charge as the main person to plan for the mission. Roxy gives a few disapproving shakes of her head, and then tells him off about derailing the original plan, which he then uses the same exact theory he had fed to Harry the other day, but with a much calmer tone that immediately convinces the entire room to take it easier.

“If we still gotta do the Americas, I hope you go into the field naked,” Bors retorts.

“I’ll cheers to that,” Eggsy grins, holding up a half-bitten piece of biscuit.

The following week is a busy one for Eggsy and Harry, with the latter still upset about the plan derailing a bit. Eggsy mostly does a good job at gathering intel and helping other agents whenever he can while practicing tactical skills with whatever time he has in between. Roxy calls him a workaholic, Eggsy just says it’s for him to thank himself later on.

It’s still a little awkward trying to play the nephew-who’s-close-with-his-uncle thing in front of all these local drug lords, but it’s especially hard when done in front of Miss Hwang and her goons. There’s already a clear line between them that indicates how different their mission styles are, and sometimes their values compromise just for that one moment to show oh, how happy Gary Thompson is that his little nephew had grown to be the man he is today, and the same goes for Eggsy too, when he starts blabbering about some made up childhood stories about how his uncle would bring him booze because he was that much of an angsty teenager then.

Somehow, they still make it work.

Roxy still calls them an old married couple for the fun of it, because she thinks it’s funny seeing Harry get all worked up, saying something along the lines of ‘not having this kind of guy in his bed’, then Eggsy teasing flirtatiously right back, then runs off with a cheeky smile on his face.

Maybe, for this one huge mission, they’ll be okay with tolerating and compromising for a bit, but Eggsy is certain he’ll be back to square one the second the mission ends.

\----------

_Harry doesn’t really like surprises._

_Part of it is just the whole spy instinct thing, but part of it is just his preference. He likes it if things are in order, no surprises or jumpscares or whatever, just all laid out bare for him to know and act accordingly._

_A man his age had long grown past the need for birthday celebrations, and none of the agents who had been in Kingsman for less than 5 years even knew of his birthday. Merlin and Arthur would slip him a small gift, a nice slice of cake, or a fine bottle of alcohol, Gawain might slip a little sticky note in between a mission report, and then he would go about the day like any other._

_With Eggsy and Roxy joining as agents, something changed. Roxy had somehow learned about his birthday while she was doing some paperwork, and she was quite calm about it, just a small, whispered ‘happy birthday’ while she’s in his office to get some files reviewed._

_Eggsy, that cheeky little shit, however, learned about it by stealing Merlin’s clipboard and going through some mission files, after pestering the man turned out to be unsuccessful._

_Harry had fully expected his birthday this year would be as usual as any other year, the same people who know giving him knowing looks and tiny gestures of acknowledgement._

_Which is why he had almost had a heart attack walking into his office when he’s immediately greeted with the sight of a cake being held up to him, then Eggsy’s face with the widest grin on it. Merlin’s sitting on one of the chairs, a wine glass in his hand, and Roxy stood leaning against the table, a slightly disapproving look on her face, like she was dragged into this._

_“Happy getting old day, Harry,” said Eggsy, still looking at Harry with the same excited expression on his face._

_For a moment, Harry wanted to tell the lad off for the surprise, but then he saw the grin, and Merlin and Roxy just being in on this, he suddenly didn’t have the heart to. Instead, he settled for a sigh, and blew the candles on the cake._

_“You do know that I’m not particularly fond of surprises, Eggsy?”_

_“Yeah, but it’s your birthday,” Eggsy whined, trailing behind Harry as he headed for his desk._

_“And I do think it’s just like any other day.”_

_“Nope, because today is the day my arch nemesis was conceived some 50 years ago, and it is a day if not celebrated by my nemesis, I will be.”_

_Harry rolled his eyes as he sat down. “So, candles were blown, what’s next for your little celebration?”_

_“Well, the cake ain’t gonna eat itself, now, will it?”_

_The rest of the day was spent eating the (choco banana, Harry’s guilty pleasure) cake, and getting tipsy on two nice bottles of scotch. Then, they decide to play paper basketball for the sake of it, and Eggsy proudly stood himself on the table as he proclaimed to be the god of all trickshots. He did get himself knocked off his little throne when Harry beat him to a ‘catch the chip in your mouth’ game, to which Eggsy merely grumbled and said the only reason Harry won was because he let him, being the birthday boy and all._

_“No Eggsy, he fuckin’ cheated! He cheated, fuckin’ liar,” Merlin pointed at Harry, his Scottish accent coming on much stronger as he got progressively more intoxicated._

_“How the fuck he cheatin’ on a fuckin’ catch game?”_

_“He ain’t drunk enough, that’s what it is.”_

_“We all had the same god damn amount to drink and we all know I’m the one who’s the lightweight here,” Harry slurred, his entire body slumped into his chair._

_“Alright boys,” Roxy groaned as she stood from where she sat on the ground, empty bottle in hand. “Time to get back to work, the world’s going to shit as we sit here like sacks of potatoes. Happy birthday, Harry.”_

_Roxy finished off with a mock salute, which Harry responded with finger guns. Merlin had passed out on the table, while Eggsy got up with Roxy’s help. He said goodbye to her, then stumbled his way to the water cooler and fetched the three of them a glass of water. He didn’t want to risk it, so he made three separate trips, with the last one for himself, as he finally sat down and finished the entire glass in one go._

_“I know ye fuckin’ hate surprises, but it’s kinda sad ye never really celebrated it, thought it would be somethin’ new to relax and just eat some cake,” Eggsy confessed._

_Harry didn’t have it in him to even be mad, or remotely annoyed. Surprised? Sure, yeah, whatever, but the kid had good intentions, and it did prove to be a nice thing to do something like this once in a while, just with some people who are close to him, having a tiny ass cake and some alcohol, before reality dawned upon them and it was back to working._

_“Scare me like that again and I make sure to replace your Oxfords with normal ones next time you’re out on a mission.”_

_Eggsy let out a chuckle, then reached for what was supposed to be Merlin’s glass of water, and then drank it._

_“You’re not actually upset, right?”_

_Harry sighed. “No, just give me that cake next time, no need for festivities and stuff.”_

_Eggsy grinned. “Aye aye, you have my word, kind sir.”_

\----------

“What’s this?”

Eggsy shrugged, Harry picked up the tiny box off his desk, and opened it. There’s a small slice of what seemed to be choco banana cake, and then realization hit Harry like a truck.

“Has it been that long since we started working on this case?”

Eggsy squinted his eyes, giving Harry an incredulous look. “That’s your first thought?”

Harry sighed. He lowered himself into his seat, as he opened the rest of the box to reveal the slice. “Has it really been almost a whole year?”

“Well, yeah. We’re already pretty close, no?”

The anniversary of the Red Dragon mission is just shy of three weeks. The pair has been making progress, and they’re so very close to securing an opportunity to take the entire operation down. Now that they’re both practically within the higher-ups of the cartel, it would be easy to get intel and plan accordingly for their subsequent missions.

“Yeah. Yeah, just, a little surprised how fast time had gone.”

“Time waits for no one, which is why,” Eggsy steps forward, the file he was holding earlier now on Harry’s desk. “I got a phone call last night, from Miss Hwang’s assistant.”

Harry digs into his cake while flipping through the update report, complete with the dialogue log, which contains page markers and highlights of certain important pieces of information exchanged during the call. One particular line highlighted in pink instead of yellow had Harry stopping mid chew.

“What’s all this?”

Eggsy crosses his arms and sighs. “Yeah, that’s exactly what it looks like.”

_Jamie Ng: Miss Hwang would like to invite both you and Mr Thompson for an evening in our headquarters, for a viewing of the now completed Dragon’s Egg._

Harry reads the dialogue that came before, which are all highlighted in yellow. The assistant seems to have arranged for a private flight that will pick them up in two weeks’ time, and accommodation at one of the hotels owned by the cartel has been arranged as well.

“We’re going to Hong Kong,” Harry states.

After so much work, they’re finally at the last stages of one of the biggest missions they’ve ever done. Harry heaves a sigh. He stands, and walks over to Eggsy to pull the guy into a tight hug. Eggsy might be a little surprised, but he returns the gesture as well.

“One year,” Harry says.

“Yeah, one year.”

Harry flips the report close and breathes a sigh of relief. His brain immediately starts turning, preplanning before Merlin even gives them the mission update meeting. Eggsy notices it, and he comes further to place his hand on the mission report.

“Harry, buddy, stop doing that. We have one or two days of break at most, I’ll give this to Merlin and us three can do a mini discussion. You’re gonna wear yourself out before we even step foot onto the jet at this rate.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Harry denies, feigning innocence.

Eggsy rolls his eyes. “If you’re gonna sit here and let your brain overheat itself, might as well come up with a detailed plan for the entire team and present it during the next meeting then.”

“I suppose I can do that.”

“Christ, NO, Harry. Leave all this to the others, we still gotta put up with Miss Hwang, I hope you saw that part where her assistant was expecting us to be available as she gives us any updates on how to reach their HQ.”

Eggsy flips open the page in question, and Harry sighs as he stares at the yellow highlighted line of text. 

  
  


_Gary U. [PERCIVAL]: I think we can manage the flight on our own perfectly fine. Gary doesn’t do well on jets that aren’t ours. Will we be given directions when we’re grounded then?_

_Jamie Ng: No, sir. I’m afraid Miss Hwang is expecting the both of you to be reachable for the next week, as she will provide the instructions to reach our escort team, who will be taking you to our headquarters._

  
  


Harry sighs. “I just want this mission to go over smoothly.”

“And I’m pretty sure it will. We’ve come this far, and the only way it would go sideways if we actually allow it to, or something that’s not in our control manages to shove it hard enough.”

“Sometimes I wish you aren’t this rational at times like these.”

Eggsy grins. “Well, too bad I am, huh? Or else you’d just go off into your mess of a brain for the rest of the day.”

Harry stands and picks up the mission report. The both of them head for Merlin’s lab, which when presented with the report, they’re met with a surprised expression and they sit down to discuss like they always do. The discussion feels comfortable, and it feels right, despite it taking up the rest of their day. Roxy joined in at some point, and the four never bothered to look at the time, only when it’s been a good six or so hours of discussing, trying on new tech, and running calculations that they feel a sudden wave of exhaustion sweep across them.

They end up with Korean takeout and some soju. The four of them seem to be savoring every bit of this moment even more. The air isn’t tense, just a looming sense of dread that they’re going to have the busiest week of their lives once the meeting tomorrow ends, all leading up to the day Eggsy and Harry departs for Hong Kong. 

The work would only continue to stack from then on, and Merlin is fully expecting to be up for 18 hour shifts to command his team to analyze intel of the Red Dragon’s lair in real time, while figuring out how to bust down the supply chain at the same time. Roxy would be in charge of the tactical team for backup on site too, and it would take a lot of mental capacity juggling the needs of her squad and communicating with HQ.

“So this is really it, huh,” Eggsy mumbles, taking a swig from his bottle of soju.

“Pretty much,” Merlin agrees. 

“Hopefully everyone gets some good rest tonight,” Harry sighs. “This is gonna be a long week.”

“No one bother me until the meeting tomorrow,” Roxy groans, tipping back the rest of her soju and setting the empty bottle down on the floor.

“If Merlin bothers you just crush the glasses,” Eggsy quips, earning a not-so friendly glare from Merlin in return.

“I hope you know that crushing Kingsman tech on purpose is one week off active duty”

Eggsy sticks his tongue out at Merlin.

“And one week wasted of precious manpower, I hope you don’t take up to Eggsy’s suggestion, Roxy,” Harry says.

“Don’t worry, I’ll sleep right through the calls.”

They call it a night at 9pm, and they clean up together. All four are exhausted, and silence hangs in the air as they all gather up their things and leave. Eggsy and Harry head for their assigned rooms, and the day ends with the same dread still looming, the following weeks leading to the final stages.

They can only hope all their hard work won’t be for nothing.

  
  


\----------

  
  


_“I’m really craving boba now,” Eggsy mumbled._

_“Great, go ahead and crave the one thing that has the most amount of everything the doctor said not to eat,” Roxy deadpanned._

_“But it’s so good, I had one right before D-Day from a little shop near the base and it had the chewiest pearls and I want one.”_

_“Continue whining and see how well it goes for you.”_

_Eggsy did his best to do a bit of a temper tantrum, wiggling his bandaged body as much as he could, and whining at Roxy._

_“Eggsy, no,” Roxy crossed her arms in front of her, giving Eggsy a firm look._

_“Eggsy, yes, I really want boba!”_

_“No, the doctor specifically said no dairy and limit the sugar intake, you’re supposed to be on a healthier diet to heal faster.”_

_Eggsy sighed and relented, knowing Roxy can be firm when she wants to, and it’d be no use trying to convince her to sneak him anything. It’s times like these that Eggsy really appreciates having Roxy to just say no to him._

_“Harry’s still mad?”_

_Roxy sighed. She pulled the chair closer to the bed and sat down._

_“How many times do I have to tell you that no one is actually mad, hm?”_

_“Well, I don’t believe that for one second, Nearly blew the mission, that’s almost a whole year’s worth of work right there.”_

_Roxy sighed again. She took one of Eggsy’s arms, and held his hand in hers._

_“First of all, the mission is a success, but nearly at the cost of your life. Everyone is thrilled that the mission went well, but no one, and I mean no one, will ever stay mad just because you did, whatever that was back there.”_

_Eggsy didn’t try to deny it, having heard Roxy say something similar over the past week since he’d woken from his coma. He simply stared at their joined hands, trying to will himself to accept what Roxy said._

_“What you did there? Reckless, sure, almost cost your life and Raze might’ve gotten out of there alive, But you were in a tough situation, and you decided that doing that was worth saving the lives of billions. You’re a fucking hero, Eggsy.”_

_Eggsy thought back to the mission. There had been no other choice, he had been the unlucky one to have to face the mastermind on his own. Whatever he did was a last resort while he had no time to wait for backup, but that also meant a great deal of explosion that nearly killed Eggsy. Had he not made his break the second he closed that valve, he might’ve made it out as a cold body._

_“There wasn’t anything else I could do,” Eggsy mumbled helplessly._

_“And that’s pretty fucking clear, so whoever is still mad at you is clearly an imbecile, if they didn’t understand just how dire the situation was. None of this is anyone’s fault, and least of all yours, if you’re still laying here and wrapped like a mummy.”_

_“I made all of you worry, that’s what.”_

_“For God’s sake, Eggsy, it’s called caring for someone you love,” Roxy fought to not roll her eyes, but did anyway. “It’s the same way you wouldn’t shut up with Merlin when I’m out on a mission, and I know you camp out at his lab whenever you can, because you do the same with Harry, don’t give me that look now.”_

_Eggsy fell silent, unsure what to say._

_“Look, Harry was your partner as backup, and he can stay mad or whatever because you made that rash decision, Merlin’s just a bit upset but he’s more worried for you than anything, and once Harry gets his head out of his ass, you’ll learn that that man is worried sick for you, and pretty sure he’s missing his arch nemesis.”_

_Eggsy pursed his lips. “Still kinda think it’s my fault.”_

_“And I hope it changes soon.”_

_“You know I love you right, Rox?”_

_Roxy smiled. She took Eggsy’s hand and placed a kiss on the back. “Always did, especially when you’re being a little prick.”_

_“What would I do without you,” Eggsy sighed._

_“Buried deep in a ditch and a lack of a friend talking your ears off, probably.”_

  
  
  


\----------

  
  


The week passes by in a blur. The agents’ days blend together in a tightly packed schedule of meetings, work, discussions, more work, and status updates. It wouldn’t be uncommon to have agents spending their entire day in the cafeteria with their laptop, or a desk be filled with nothing but meal containers and drink boxes. 

Of course, the sight isn’t an unfamiliar one, and agents have given up on looking professional or tidy 2 hours after stepping into their workspaces. It’d be hard to not want to take off your coat if you’re running between 4 different places for paperwork and reports, or even have half a mind to keep your tie in place when you barely have the time to use the loo.

The day of departing to Hong Kong comes a lot quicker than anyone might’ve felt. One second everyone is waist deep into their meetings, the next is having the tech team brief everyone on all the supplies the two main agents will be bringing with them, and Andrew handing over the newly modified suits with all the surveillance tech equipped nicely and ready to go. 

“The tracker and mic are sewn into the bottom seams,” Merlin points to the bottom of the coat. “Camera is right at the edge of this pocket, and the pocket square acts as a wireless power source.”

“Right, and what’s that?”

Eggsy points towards the two pairs of glasses, still in their cases. Merlin picks one up and takes the [pair](https://pin.it/iYRIn5H) out, holding it out to Eggsy.

“WHOA,” Eggsy exclaims. “This new UI, wow!”

“The team made a small bit of upgrade, but the main upgrade is to the structure of the glasses itself,” Merlin takes the glasses back from Eggsy. “New material, sturdier, designed by our new friends from South Korea, hence the round, steel frames.”

“I dont think these would suit me very well, style wise,” Harry picks up the second pair, examining it.

“Which is why, we have a [second design](https://pin.it/6S1bLyb),” Merlin fishes out two more boxes amongst the pile of tech on his table. “These are similar to what we have currently, and are the same upgrades, just different in design.”

Harry gives a pleased smile as he looks at the mirror after trying on the glasses. “I suppose a fresh look is indeed a must for a mission this big.”

“Aye, we have a couple more things from our Korean friends as well, like the watch, and the ring. My team worked with them on both of these, and they’ll be ready tomorrow, they’re finalizing the software.”

“Right. I suppose we’ll get going, then. Bors is going to be meeting us for the backup plan briefing, and then pretty sure Lancelot is gonna go through our supplies list together,” Harry heaves a sigh.

“You both are gonna do great, I believe in you,” Merlin gives them both a smile.

“You don’t really think that when you’re this close to pissing your pants from the nerves, unfortunately,” Eggsy huffs, hoping the humor would ease some of the tension.

“Alright, too bad you’re gonna upset the cleaning lady by doing so, now off you go before Bors gets upset too.”

They get into one of the smaller conference rooms, and start discussing the plan. Bors pulls up many maps that show simulated maps of the site, which they quickly figured out and located over the week as Red Dragon gives them directions on who to meet and how to get to their HQ. Turns out, the driver is just some common folk who didn’t bother about covering his tracks when messaging his boss about the jobs he has, so it was easy to hack into his devices and track him whenever he’s bringing guests to the hotel.

“Entrances are expected to be heavily guarded, and since Hwang Shuyi gave you guys the special encrypted invite, there’s no way to sneak anyone else on the field without rousing suspicion, so you two are on your own until the plan is set in motion,” Bors explains as he pulls up to show the map on the screen.

“Can’t we just take down one of the people going and steal the invite?” Eggsy points out.

“Unfortunately, no. Besides biometric scanners, Jamie Ng will be on site to verify the person they’re admitting in. This would be too risky considering he’s pretty much met every single person invited. Jamie Ng practically never leaves Hwang Shuyi’s side, and it’s best to wait till this little gang is done and we quietly take down the guards after we disable their comms.”

“So how’s the backup?” Harry asks.

“It’s pretty straightforward. We managed to get three undercover agents in Red Dragon to actually be on site as backend staff, two are assistants and one who just joined a month ago managed to be a labor guy, so he’ll be giving us the intel on the stocks later on.”

“And what if the two can’t do anything?” 

“You two will just have to sweet talk her into giving more info. If you manage to get her to show you guys the stockpile before the viewing, it would give us more time to plan how we can track the pallets. Trackers will be given to Eggsy, your lighter will not be the grenade variant, but instead the storage one. We’ll give you the signal if we manage to figure out which pallets to drop the trackers onto.”

Bors shows the lighter to Eggsy. It looks like any of their standard issued grenades, but instead of blowing up, the body clicks open to reveal a bit of storage space when the switch is triggered.

“Now, once the viewing starts, we’ll infiltrate their systems, but we still don’t know for sure how well that will go yet. Wi-Fi is a given, but we suspect that the guest Wi-Fi is different from their framework intranet, so see if you two can get to Miss Hwang’s office and get her alone before the viewing, and connect from there. Otherwise, we’ll just have to brute force the addresses on the public network to get to the internal framework.”

Eggsy groans. “Christ, that’s a whole load.”

Bors agrees with a chuckle. “This is all with the assumption that the intel we have is as accurate as it can be. We still can’t get a full scan unless we’re physically there. You’re still equipped with one perfume freeze grenade each, but keep in mind, only one, and that’s when, and if, things get messy. We’re still going to need her alive for the cleanup.”

They’re not expecting it to be messy, just the part where they locate the stockpile and get through security before making sure the Dragon’s Egg isn’t given the go ahead to be distributed. They are going for a viewing after all, and it’s not going to be very eventful, unless someone wills it to be.

The meeting goes on for another hour, and it ends with the three of them breathing a sigh of relief. Bors closes the tablet, and the screen goes dark.

“I’ll be sending over the detailed report to the both of you, and you can review it and direct any questions to me. Remember, the main objective is to first connect us into the framework so we can track everything, then dropping the trackers into respective pallets to make sure we know when and where these things go to.”

“Heard you loud and clear, Bors,” Eggsy mock salutes, a tired smile on his face.

“You both are our best agents, now go meet Lancelot and prepare to kick some ass.”

Bors send them off with a shooing motion, and the both of them walk towards the armory in relative silence. 

“D’you think we can really pull everything off?”

Eggsy pauses in the middle of the hallway, hands crossed in front of him, eyes downcast. He’s hit with a sudden wave of uncertainty, and is questioning his capabilities as the main agent on this mission. He knows he’s more than capable of handling this, but he’s not sure if things will go over smooth enough in the end.

“Says the man who told me we’ve come this far to screw things up on our own accord,” Harry states. He’s paused as well, hands going into his pant pockets, as he faces Eggsy.

“I don’t know, just feel like one wrong move and all the fault is gonna be pinned onto me, or you, even though we know by now how unpredictable this situation is likely gonna be.”

“And you truly think anyone would be blaming any of us? We’re a team, Eggsy,” Harry states matter-of-factly.

“Yeah I get all that, but god damn if I don’t feel the pressure for this, might just fuck around in the end after all,” Eggsy lets out a humorless laugh.

Harry sighs. He steps forward and pulls Eggsy into a hug. The sudden gesture causes Eggsy to freeze, but he relaxes after the initial shock.

“You and I are gonna be fine. This next part is just a viewing and planting the trackers, nothing we haven’t done before. We’ll just stick to what we have, and things should roll out just as easily, or as easy as they can be.”

Eggsy sighs as he returns the hug. As weird as the gesture is coming from Harry, it’s still appreciated. “Thanks, Harry.”

Harry lets go of Eggsy after a moment. “You know, with all the fighting we do, I think we make a pretty decent pair sometimes.”

“Pfft, it’s not that many ‘sometimes’, if I recall my missions correctly.”

Harry crosses his arms and gives Eggsy a mildly offended look. “Are you perhaps insinuating I’m a bad agent?”

“Nope, you just make for a shitty partner,” Eggsy says in a singsong tone, playful smile back on his face.

“I hope you won’t complain tomorrow when you can’t find your proper Oxfords then.”

“Oh you wouldn’t dare.”

“I’ll take it as a challenge.”

“See if I care.”

Eggsy walks off in a dramatic manner, making a show of huffing a breath of triumph, with Harry following behind, lips pursed into an amused smile.

At least they’re the ones paired together for this one hell of a mission, then.

  
  


\----------

  
  


_“Percival, you’ll be heading to Phuket, where the energy core for the Asian region is located.”_

_Eggsy acknowledges Merlin with a nod, cross checking the details displayed on his own tablet whenever Merlin rattles each agents’ roles off, making sure to add notes of his own, though at this point he’d allowed his nerves to be eased with a few doodles and random scribbles._

_“Now, the layout of the warehouses are pretty straightforward. Surface will be the guards’ area, upstairs will be more guards and some technicians, and our target will be right here.”_

_Merlin points to the basement portion of the building on the map. There’s a clear marker on the basement, with expandable details on all intel they know about the energy core. It looks a lot like a nuclear energy core, but the inside is way less dangerous than one._

_“Now, due to the nature of the locations in Australia and Thailand, the backup team will be smaller and will not be able to follow the agents on site. The team will be within the closest region they can be without alerting the people there, and if backup is needed, it will take a little longer. Team for Australia will be given extra supplies, the weather in the Outback regions are pretty unstable.”_

_Eggsy didn’t mind it that much. He was confident he can easily handle a few goons and sneaking around as quiet as possible. He was pretty sure the technicians wouldn’t be giving him too much of a hard time, and will just back off to let him do his job._

_“We’re expecting the mastermind, Raze, to be in the London site, considering he is expecting us. Gawain, you will have to contain any scuffle as much as possible, to prevent any public attention towards this. We don’t want to add onto the panic here.”_

_At least Eggsy wouldn’t have to face the mastermind himself. He sighed in relief, slumping further into his chair. The meeting had been going on for forever, and he doubted it was ending soon, with discussions needing to be had regarding each inidividual agent’s roles and their respective field teams._

_The mission was about to come to an end. Eggsy did not wish to fuck it up, it’d been a whole lot of time and effort put into this, and he wasn’t about to let all that go to waste._

_He would be fine, he is more than capable of handling this._

_He was confident._

  
  


_\----------_

  
  
  
  


The entire flight to Hong Kong feels almost like an express train straight to hell, in Harry’s opinion.

Sure, he puts up his calm front no problem, and it’s pretty funny seeing Eggsy try to calm himself by walking back and forth the bar and his seat. Harry, on the other hand, has resorted to alcohol to just mellow himself out slightly.

Inside, Harry is freaking out too, brain running way faster than he could even catch on to, and he’s thinking of just about every way the mission could fail because one of them does a stupid, and flips the entire mission over. He still tries his best to silence his thoughts, but it’s proven to be pretty much useless the more he tries to do it.

He can’t help but to check the invite on his phone, too. He pretends to scroll through social media, but he’s closing the app every few seconds to open up the file for the invite, and reality hits him square in the face every single time, reminding him about the weight of the situation at hand.

“Maybe a drink will do you some good, Percival,” Harry calls towards Eggsy after a while, as the man has been pacing back and forth for a good 15 minutes now. 

“You’d think I would even have the mood for that,” Eggsy retorts.

“If you quit pacing and sit down for one minute, I’d say you would.”

Eggsy makes a sharp turn and walks towards Harry, a look of pure frustration on his face. “No, Galahad, I do NOT have the mood for a drink, because frankly, I’m terrified. This mission has been in the works for far too long for me to screw it over, and the stakes here are too high, we’re talking lives and the long-term economic impacts of these countries, political stability, all the shit no other mission would have because this is structured to be milking the flaws of the systems in place and no one can even convict Red Dragon for it because they can easily burn away all the connections tying them to this entire thing!”

“For the last time, Percival, this is a _we_ mission, not just _you_ , so you can sit down, have a drink and take a nap for all I could care, or do something else that’s not pacing back and forth like you’re racking up steps on your fitbit.”

Harry’s tone is cold and calm, one of the signs of impending rage. Eggsy sighs. He drops back into his seat, looking like a defeated child.

“We don’t even know if any of this will work out.”

“The plans are there for a reason, stick to them and things will be fine,” Harry says, calmly.

“Oh, you know, you fuckin’ know damn well how unpredictable this is gonna be, Bors said himself we don’t even know jack about the layout of the venue, just rough approximates from the undercovers’ descriptions. Plans work for shit in this situation, nothing can help us.”

“A rough plan is better than no plan, Percival, you’ve been an agent for this long, and have you really learned nothing at all?”

“Well one thing I learned is that plans are fuckin’ useless sometimes,” Eggsy spits out, growing more irritated by the second.

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?”

Eggsy makes an irritated sound.

“Listen here, guv, we’re going in practically blind, no telling if Miss Hwang would be nice or not, surveillance is up and it would be hard to use the EMPs without rousing suspicion, and what if she suddenly decides to start distribution the very next day? Do you know how utterly fucked on both ends we are?”

Harry sucks in a deep breath, and sets his glass down. He stands and walks towards where Eggsy is sitting.

“First of all, I’ve told you to not call me ‘guv’.”

Eggsy doesn’t even flinch.

“Second of all, I think it’s best the both of us try to calm down.”

“Great, like it’s not the one thing I’ve been doing the second I woke up today.”

“It’s clouding our judgement, Eggsy. You and I both know that we are very much capable of pulling this off. I don’t know why exactly is this affecting us so much, but you just need to calm down.”

“Easier said than fuckin’ done.”

“For God’s sakes Eggsy! You literally pulled off half your missions without following the original plan, and just about every mission I’m paired with you is often _derailed_ because you run off with your own course of action, but you _somehow_ , get it working every, single, time. No plan is your whole schtick, Percival, that’s your thing! Are you truly questioning your capabilities now?”

Harry feels the energy drain out of him as he all but yells. Eggsy sits stunned, eyes wide and unable to move, at some point of all the yelling Harry had grabbed his shoulders in a tight hold. The silence holds, until Harry eventually stumbles back into his seat, grabbing his glass and downing what’s left of it.

“I’m sorry,” Harry murmurs.

“You’re right. It’s fine, we’re both just anxious, even if for the dumbest reasons.”

“I’d hardly call this dumb.”

Eggsy huffs. “Yeah, y’know what, we just _are_ the best team, huh?”

“As a wise person once said, we do make a decent pair sometimes.”

  
  


\----------

  
  


_“Target within sight.”_

“Good work, Percival. Awaiting response from the team before proceeding, ETA 3 minutes,” _Merlin reported, reading from his screen._

_“Alright, I’ll watch for any activity. Enabling transmission now.”_

_Eggsy clicked the side of his glasses, channelling his vision to a live feed straight to Merlin’s screen._

_“How’re things for others?”_

“They’re holding up fine, still no sign of Raze in London, either he’s late, or went to the America site.”

_“And the other Handlers are having the most fun while you’re choosing to stick with me,” Eggsy chuckled._

“Must I remind you that you were the one to request me, specifically, as your Handler?”

_“Shhh, no need to expose me like that, Merlin.”_

_The both of them knew full well why Eggsy had asked Merlin as his Handler. Eggsy was pretty sure he’d shit his pants from the nerves if he didn’t have his mentor on the line. While this was far from being the largest mission Eggsy had ever done, this was certainly quite dangerous, and going in solo was pretty much the only way to ensure minimum casualties, at least until the surface level guards are taken out stealthily with no means of reporting back to their HQ._

_Thankfully, the base in Phuket is smaller, so Eggsy was able to go in solo without the need of a partner. The only time backup would be needed was if he managed to somehow alert any of the guards of his presence, which would be highly unlikely._

“Backup’s settling in. Need anything before you’re in?”

_“I’ll take a nice iced tea in the getaway, and the really good Malaysian Laksa from that one restaurant, like, 2 streets over from the shop when we’re back.”_

_Merlin chuckled from the opposite end of the line._ “As long as you come out of there in one piece, yeah?”

_“One piece? Hopefully you don’t mind mild defects on the cargo, then.”_

  
  


_\----------_

  
  


They land in Hong Kong, making one stop in Istanbul before eventually arriving at Hong Kong International Airport, a trip of more than 12 hours on their small private jet. Eggsy slept through pretty much most of the flight, but the same cannot be said for his partner. Instead of resting, Harry opted for a quick crash course on the local language to get them by.

“And you better catch some sleep tonight, the viewing’s tomorrow,” Eggsy groans, pulling his luggage along while fighting his headache.

“I’m clear of that, I did spend my time wisely, keeping my brain occupied on something else.”

“Glad it’s that instead of you doing that thing, then,” Eggsy sighed.

They both stood at the arrival hall, as per instruction. They have been given instructions to wait and a code phrase for identity verification, but no one seems out of the ordinary in the sea of people.

“It’s literally people mountain, people sea here for such a small country,” Eggsy mumbles.

“You do realize that phrase only sounds right when it’s in Chinese?”

“Huh, yeah, I guess, but it does perfectly describe the situation here, it’s so crowded!”

“Like this isn’t one of the busiest business hubs in the world,” Harry huffs. “Don’t be surprised by the crowd.”

Just then, a man walks towards them, and bumps into Harry, causing the both of them to stumble, and the man’s belongings to fall onto the floor. 

“Ah, sorry, I’m on the phone for an urgent deal for some goat’s milk here,” the man explains hurriedly, gathering his things and standing up.

“Why, I would suggest getting into the business of dog breeding instead,” Harry smiles.

The man examines Harry and Eggsy. “I think you should tell me more.”

“Oh, gladly. Let’s talk over a nice cup of milk tea, perhaps?”

Eggsy and Harry follows the man, and they get into a car. It looks just like any other yellow taxi in the area, but one look at the hanging accessories inside the car would give it away. 

“Samuel Kingsley and Gary Thompson?” 

The man reads their aliases off a file, and Eggsy gives a nod of affirmation.

“We’ll take you to the HQ. Hope you don’t mind going dark, we’ll give you some light in here.”

The man clicks a few buttons, and the windows in the backseat go completely dark. A partition is slowly raising to separate the front and back as well, then the light on top of them comes on.

“Enjoy the ride,” the man says before the partition closes off completely.

Eggsy sighs. “What’s with the goat’s milk and dog breeding back there? That wasn’t exactly our code, right?”

“It’s a common Chinese idiom, ‘to hang a goat’s head and sell dog’s meat’. Quite fitting for people like the Red Dragon, isn’t it?”

“I mean, I guess. Scratch that, it’s perfect.”

“Funny that he didn’t outright ask if we’re the sellers of mutton, perhaps it’d be too easy of a code to crack, it seems Miss Hwang is still testing us this far into the game,” Harry shrugs.

“It is a game for her after all, not really surprised.”

“She’s weeding out any of the last candidates that just aren’t good enough for her.”

“Pretty polite way to say she just doesn’t want idiots doing business with her,” Eggsy mutters.

“Chin up now, Sam. I’m sure the hotel will give us a good amount of rest for the night before tomorrow.”

“I just miss my puppy back home.”

_“Receiving loud and clear, Percival,”_ Merlin’s voice crackles through the glasses.

“Do you think there will be a live game on TV tonight? I sure hope there is,” Harry says.

_“The signal is slightly bad due to the fact that you both are heading to a more rural area, but you’ll be okay.”_

“We’re all the way in Hong Kong and you’re watching TV? You need to go outside and explore, not laze around,” Eggsy grumbles.

_“Not much exploring, you guys are a long way from the city.”_

“I can do whatever I want.”

Eggsy scoffs. “Your choice in leisure activities are shitty, I’m gonna go enjoy a nice sauna.”

The line crackles a bit, then silence. 

“I do hope there actually is a sauna there, would be a nice relaxing thing before tomorrow.”

“Me and you, buddy, me and you.”

  
  


\----------

  
  


_“I thought I’m getting the smallest base, what the fuck is all this?”_

_Eggsy whisper yelled to Merlin while staying hidden behind the windowframe. From where he was hiding, he could see at least 10 guards, all armed, and there probably will be a few more in the second floor._

“No idea, Percival. I’m seeing around 5 to 8 on other sites, London has 10 too, but that’s to be expected.”

_“And here I am with 10 to take down, alone, with basically no way of using backup.”_

_Eggsy took another recon of the space, and found a fire escape ladder he could climb to get inside on the railings. He managed to enter, and steeled himself to calculate just how many there were._

_“Fuckin’ hell, Merlin, are you seeing this?”_

“Precise and clear, Percival. I’m scanning 12 through your transmission.”

_“There’s no way I can stealth this. I need a new plan.”_

_Eggsy climbed further up onto the ladder to see if he could take a peek at the second floor. Through a smaller window, he managed to see the supposed lab and lounge for the site staff._

_“I think I know what we can do here, Merlin.”_

“Percival, are you sure? Time is of the essence but the team is doing an analysis as we speak.”

_“Positive. Show me where the supply closet is and I’ll be in.”_

_The location flashed onto the glasses, and Eggsy made his move. He carefully crawled through one of the tiny bathroom windows and snuck into the closet. Inside, he found spare lab coats, safety lab gear, and some stationery in a small basket on the cleaning supplies rack._

_Carefully, Eggsy took one of the lab coats, and stuffed a pair of goggles, a few gloves and some pens into the coat pocket, while snagging an empty card holder with the organization’s logo branded onto the leather material. He scanned the surroundings for anything else he could take, before putting on his haul._

_“If you can’t do it stealthily, plain sight is the way to go.”_

“Aye, I’m uploading your identity into the database now.”

_Eggsy headed for the same way he came in. Once the upload was done, it was show time._

  
  


\----------

  
  


“You have got to be taking the fucking piss.”

They arrive at their suite. Sure, it’s quite big, and it seems that they’re in the middle of some woods, judging by the view from the balcony. It’s basically the size of a normal apartment, complete with a dining table near the bed. 

Keyword being: bed, singular.

“I think this is quite lovely, what’s the problem?”

Harry walks past Eggsy and drops his bags, beginning to check out the rest of the suite. Meanwhile, Eggsy stands right at the doorway and groans loudly into his palms. He genuinely wishes there’s a sinkhole right underneath this hotel building and he can just get sucked right into it at this very moment.

Sharing a bed with Harry really isn’t that bad of a thing, Eggsy just feels extremely embarrassed by it. Not because of any particular reason, of course.

With a sigh, Eggsy drops his bags and loosens his tie after draping his coat on the rack. He’s going to need the rest if he’s gonna need the mental capacity of dealing with one Harry Hart, prepare for the viewing tomorrow, and sharing a bed with Harry Hart.

_He’s probably a sheet hoarder. Maybe he snores. For God’s sake Eggsy stop thinking so much!_

Eggsy shakes himself out of his stupor and begins unpacking, taking out the suits covered in garment bags and putting them into the closet. He finds the orange suit he’s supposed to wear tomorrow and places it at the very front. He still cannot believe Andrew thought it would be a good idea for him to wear the orange suit. 

_“It’s a rather casual event, anyways. Plus, it’s just a bit of a status boast, since this is one of the finest fabrics at the moment, which just so happens to be perfect for sewing in the surveillance tech.”_

Eggsy hates that Andrew knows so much more about tailoring and bespoke suits, and how he’s probably right about the status boast, but does he really have to choose orange out of all colors? He will never know, and it’s too late to even ask for an alteration or change anyway.

“Anything in particular you would like to have for dinner? I’ll put in an order later,” Harry asks, holding up the room service menus in his hand.

“I’ll order myself later, I’m gonna take a shower,” Eggsy muttered.

The atmosphere continues to be just teetering onto the side of awkward. They each mind their own business like the other doesn’t exist, Eggsy taking the king-sized bed to go over the plans once more, and Harry laying down on the recliner out on the balcony, nursing a glass of mimosa while working on his laptop.

“Don’t even know if i can stream anything HD on this Wi-Fi,” Harry mutters under his breath, feigning irritation as he goes through a list of Twitch live channels.

_“As expected, it’s just local guest network. Try scoring supper with the lady.”_

Harry sighs. He closes his laptop and finishes the rest of his mimosa, taking slow sips as he thinks over how they should go about the little impromptu supper proposal. After a quick check of time on his watch to make sure it’s not too late for an invite, he steps back into the suite and walks over to where Eggsy is.

“I feel like we should meet our host before the party just to ease some of our nerves, so how do you feel about inviting Miss Hwang for supper?”

Eggsy gives Harry a puzzled look. “Do we have to?”

“Not necessarily, just to greet our friend, and I’d like to see if the Wi-Fi down in the dining hall is better than what we have here.”

Eggsy immediately understands. He shrugs in response. “Well, you make a solid case. I’ll see about talking to her assistant.”

“Very well. Hopefully we can try some street food, or a nice cup of boba, not sure if they’re available at that hour…”

While Harry mumbles to himself, Eggsy is calling Jamie. The assistant picks up after a couple of rings, and he greets Eggsy with a cheerful tone.

“Nothing much, Jamie. I’m just wondering if we can extend an invite for supper with Miss Hwang? We’ve settled down, but we’re hoping to maybe ease some of these jitters with a nice meal shared with the host herself.”

_“Ah, yes. Hang on for a moment, Miss Hwang would like to speak directly to you.”_

There’s a bit of rustling, and Eggsy smiles at the voice of Miss Hwang coming through the speakers. 

_“Mr Kingsley! I hope the accommodation arrangements are best suited to your needs?”_

“It’s all good, Miss Hwang,” Eggsy had to force himself to bite back a few unpleasant remarks. “Please, if we’re this far ahead into partnership, feel free to call me Sam.”

_“Well in that case, Sam, call me Shuyi. My assistant told me you’d like to have supper tonight?”_

“Yes, Gary is hoping we could try some local delicacies, since it is actually our first time staying in Hong Kong for this long, after all.”

_“Oh, I know the perfect dishes for you. How does meeting in my lounge sound? 10pm, dress however you’d like to. My lounge is good for a nice relaxing spot, away from the bustling chatter down in the dining hall. Jamie will show you the way.”_

“Wonderful. We’ll be seeing you then, Shuyi.”

_“See you,”_ the line crackles and ends.

Eggsy sighs in relief. He pads over to where Harry is sitting on one of the couches. “Supper at 10, casual wear, we’re heading to her lounge.”

Three hours pass by in relative silence. The two are still tending to each of their own, and it’s not until there’s 10 minutes until Jamie is expected that Eggsy sits up from where he’s been laying on the couch and groans, stretching his stiff body from remaining in the same position for quite some time. Harry doesn’t even bother doing his hair, but he still wears a suit, which Eggsy feels pressured to match.

“And here I thought we’re supposed to be dressing casual,” Eggsy complains out loud.

“That just means a lighter, less formal suit.”

Eggsy rolls his eyes at that. “Of course it does.”

Jamie arrives as expected, and he guides them both to the first basement floor. The floor seems to be reserved only for Hwang Shuyi herself, as well as Jamie. Eggsy does his best to look around without rousing suspicion, allowing the scanner in his glasses to do a full recon.

“Ah, right on time! The food just arrived, let’s enjoy while it’s fresh!”

Shuyi welcomes the pair into the lounge, where the table by the couch is filled with takeout containers. Eggsy beams at the sight of food, and eagerly sit down, where Shuyi introduces them to each container of food one by one. 

“And here’s a local favorite, boba milk tea! I have here the original one, as well as one chocolate and one melon flavored, you may choose which you’d like.”

“I’ll try the melon,” Eggsy reaches for the cup, eagerly poking the straw through and sipping happily at the drink. He wouldn’t ever need to put up a front when there’s food involved.

“I’ll have the original, but before we feast, Shuyi, mind if I have access to the Wi-Fi here? The internet for the guest room isn’t ideal for me to stream movies in HD, I suppose I’ll just download some here,” Harry fiddles with his phone, scrolling through Netflix to add a random movie to his download list.

“Of course! The password is right here,” Shuyi writes down the password on a piece of receipt and hands it to Harry.

Eggsy leaves Harry to take care of the internet stuff, while he starts to put his plan to butter the lady up in motion. It’s proving to be not that hard of a task, considering the food _is_ good, and he’s enjoying himself, which makes improvising a lot easier.

“These egg waffles are to die for, way better than any pancakes or waffles we have.”

“We’ll have some of those at the viewing tomorrow, there’s gonna be different flavors, too,” Shuyi smiles.

“Wow, that’s great! Speaking of, how’s the preparations going?”

“Ah, Jamie’s taking care of the rest. My job from here on out is to entertain you guys, answer any questions you might have, the usual,” Shuyi shrugs. 

“Well, since we’re here… You reckon we can take a peep at the stockpile?”

Eggsy gives a cheeky grin, hoping it looks playful enough that he’s not that serious, but maybe it will convince the lady. It works, because Shuyi returns the cheeky look, and she’s setting down her cup of boba.

“I suppose we can do a little of, shall we say, pregaming?”

“You’re aces, Shuyi! Gary, you comin’?”

“I’ll stay here with the food, my movies are still downloading, after all.”

Eggsy gives a small nod of acknowledgement, then turns back to Shuyi. Harry wants to buy the time he has to let Merlin and the team work their magic, while he does some physical recon to see if he manages to find anything of significance.

_“Security systems are jammed, move now, Galahad.”_

Harry takes off, and his first spot is the main working table, where he manages to secure a list of all outbound deliveries expected to be made the day after the viewing. He snaps a picture of it on his glasses, then a bit of profile for each representative from different regions. He skips the ones for him and Eggsy, and quickly takes pictures of each profile. His work here should provide a lot of help for the cleanup crew once the mission is over.

On the other side, Eggsy and Shuyi have made it to the lower basement level. Eggsy cannot be certain which floor, but deep enough that transmission to HQ has been paused, and his glasses have entered recording mode. He hopes his phone has enough storage for the occasion. 

_Really_ should’ve deleted those internet cat photos when he was on the flight.

“The stockpile has been in the works for quite some time, and there will only be more as we ramp up production on Dragon’s Egg and its antidote. Of course, stocks for the first batch will be limited, but it will be enough for you and Gary to bring back a good amount, with good financial returns, of course.”

They enter a freezer room, and Eggsy’s eyes widen at the amount of wooden pallets stacked on top of crates of Dragon’s Eggs. Almost the entire room is filled, and Eggsy just couldn’t keep the look of wonder off of his face.

“So I can just take any of these with me, huh?”

“Not quite, the sample crates for viewing is in that freezer. The pill itself isn’t really temperature sensitive, but the antidote is, so I keep the nicely packaged but easily accessible stuff there.”

Eggsy beams. “Can I see?”

Having such a convenient system means it would be way easier to just drop the trackers. He follows the lady to the second, smaller freezer room, where seven crates with ice boxes on top sit nicely in the rather empty space. Eggsy circles the crates, and gets to work.

He crouches down and plants his first tracker, the second following suit as he marvels at the ice boxes. He plants the third one as he opens one, after gaining approval from Shuyi.

“Good god, How many are in one of these?”

“50 of them, which means the price can be inflated accordingly. Supplies for the general public will be limited so you guys can push yours onto the darker sides of the market,” Shuyi explains with a smile.

“They’re all the same, right?” Eggsy plants the fourth, opening a second box. Halfway through.

“Yep, all QC’ed to the finest by my staff. No need to worry about any defect cargo, because there is none.”

Eggsy pats another ice box, that makes it five. Just two more. “Pity Gary didn’t come for the pregame, he’d be thrilled to see all this.”

“Well, he’ll be able to see all this tomorrow anyway,” Shuyi picks up one of the unmarked boxes. “He’s just lost a bit of that pregame rush.”

“I think it’ll be fine. After all, we’re both very happy to help out through this partnership,” Eggsy smiles, standing and taking the ice box from Shuyi and planting the tracker. Just one more.

“Likewise, Sam. Gary was the one who convinced me, after all. The both of you do have potential, and look where the both of you are now.”

“We’re just glad that we could expand on the family’s legacy, after two generations of working in the dark.”

Eggsy crouches down to put the ice box back in place. He gives the final one a pat, and that’s all seven trackers planted.

“Well, I’m more than happy to have the both of you with the Red Dragon. Here’s to more successful endeavors,” Shuyi holds out her hand to Eggsy, which he takes and they both shake on.

“The pleasure is all mine, Shuyi.”

  
  


\---------- 

  
  


_The lab coat felt suffocating, even after Eggsy had unbuttoned his suit jacket to make himself look less formal underneath the white coat. He tried to make himself look as casual as possible, purposefully ruffling up the neatly styled hair and did his best to look sheepish while the guard at the front door pulled up his details on a tablet, while occasionally glancing at the clumsy tech assistant who was late on d-day of the big project. He grunted at ‘Winston Rockwell’, then begrudgingly lowered his gun and let the tech assistant through._

_Eggsy made his way to the second floor after realizing there really wasn’t much he could do on the ground floor, not with that many guards. He quietly slid into an empty spot by a table, where only one technician was occupying. He grabbed a clipboard nearby and a pen, trying to think of the next step._

“Percival, you’ve got about an hour till the thing goes off. Might wanna speed it up a little,” _Merlin informed through his glasses, which Eggsy merely replies by tapping out an affirmative in Morse._

_He had an hour, which was quite a good amount of time to try and blend in, while figuring out how to properly disable the core without anyone noticing. He flipped through the papers on the clipboard, trying to see if any info on the sheets would help him. Before he could get through everything, the technician beside him took the clipboard off his hands._

_“So, who you’re with?”_

_Eggsy paled. “Huh?”_

_“CIA? British Secret Service? Interpol? I just want to know.”_

_The technician had a seemingly bored expression on her face, not bothering to even look at Eggsy. She muttered all her words, like she was trying to whisper them, which Eggsy assumed as not wanting the guards to see or hear what they were saying._

_“I don’t quite get what you’re saying,” Eggsy tried his best to feign innocence._

_“We won’t get in your way, just tell me what’s the plan and we’ll follow. Don’t look at me, take this tablet.”_

_The technician shoved a tablet into Eggsy’s hands, which Eggsy immediately powered on to poke around. “I’m from an independent spy organization.”_

_“Oh? That’s a new one. So, the plan? We have about… 56 minutes.”_

_Eggsy sighed. “I still need to think of one. This wasn’t exactly in the original plan. I promise I won’t harm any of you lot.”_

_“Would be betting on it since I did promise we’ll stay out of your way. We’re just here for the job and money, none of us are even armed.”_

_“Okay, that helps. Any idea on how guarded is the core down there?”_

_“Not sure, last I checked it was just four of them. There’s a small team down there, they’ll run out the second you make it clear why you’re there.”_

_Eggsy let out a small frustrated grunt. He probably wouldn’t be able to get much help from the technicians, aside from them staying out of the mission. Taking down four men wouldn’t be a problem, but how likely would it be that when the others notice the four missing men and immediately notify their HQ?_

_“Any alarms or alert systems I should be aware of?”_

_“The only ones are the manual ones; the guards have them to send signals to the entire team here and HQ. Pretty sure you already know what happens if HQ knows?”_

_“Yep, unfortunately. How suspicious would it be to go down there and have a check right now?”_

_“Not at all if you’re coming with me. Bring the tablet and hold these for me,” the technician says, immediately dumping a load of files and papers into Eggsy’s hands. They walked down through stairs, and were quickly greeted by the view of the core’s entire mechanism, with a few technicians surrounding it, and the four guards lingering nearby._

_The other technicians barely bat an eye at Eggsy, merely acknowledging him with a slight nod and a smile. The only other acknowledgement of Eggsy was one of the technicians holding up three fingers, which his partner shook her head at, and mouthed ‘none’ in reply._

_Eggsy surveyed the mechanism, and did a cross check of the diagram on his tablet versus the one in front of him, making sure to understand it as much as possible to figure out the fastest and safest way to disable it._

_“The fail safe is only active for us. Take my card, scan it and it deactivates instantly,” one of the other technicians offered, silently slipping his ID card into Eggsy’s lab coat pocket, to which Eggsy muttered a word of appreciation in response._

_He checked the tablet he was given beforehand, going through the overview of the energy core that would power the real weapon. Once the core was activated, the weapon would blast out gas filled with the pathogen that would cause a widespread epidemic, which would easily evolve into a pandemic if not for their current mission._

_It all seemed too easy. He could just scan the card and be done with it, but he felt as if there was something more to everything, a very clear obstacle hiding in plain sight, but he couldn’t exactly pinpoint where, and whom._

_The problem of alerting the guards wouldn’t be that much of a problem if he managed to take down the four and then pull the fail safe to prevent reactivation, and wait for backup to help him take down everyone else. The risk would still be there, but if he played his cards correctly, he could very well score properly._

_“38 minutes. Final check, team, make sure nothing is out of place, then get into the hazmat suits,” Eggsy’s partner yelled out, and the small team got back to work._

_He really hoped everything could just play out perfectly._

  
  


_\----------_

  
  


Sharing a bed with Harry proves to be one of the most annoying things ever.

For one, it’s awkward as fuck when the bed is just that tiny bit smaller, forcing them to squeeze just a little tighter than comfortable (which is, in reality, quite a tiny bit). Harry doesn’t seem to mind, or he just hides the fact that he does better than Eggsy.

Spoiler alert: he actually kinda does. He prefers to keep his personal space, but this isn’t actually the worst.

But maybe he’s also a big cuddler, and it is incredibly hard to restrain himself from just koala-hugging Eggsy the first time they share a bed. 

Which would be Eggsy’s second reason for Why Sharing A Bed With Harry Hart Is Annoying And Awkward: Harry Hart is a starfish when he’s trying not to cuddle. Eggsy had slept fitfully, but he had been too tired to even care, just retreating into his side as much as possible. He’s pretty sure Harry had started cuddling him at some point during the night, but no confirmation can be made, since Harry had gotten out of bed first in the morning.

The night prior, Eggsy did try and just sleep on the couch, but Harry had immediately called him a fool for that, and since they still cannot be sure if they are under surveillance, Eggsy had no choice but to relent.

Needless to say, Roxy received the product that is one slightly flustered Eggsy Unwin’s frantic texting, before he slept only when Roxy threatened to kidnap JB from him and keep him until the next time he’s off active duty, which basically means never. 

The morning is spent in relative silence. Breakfast was over quickly and they get dressed, before going through their plan one last time on their own, while occasionally chatting about what they would like to do with the new cargo after the viewing.

Eggsy keeps reminding himself that it’s just a viewing, even as the both of them step foot into the main hall of the hotel. There aren’t many guests in the hotel restaurant, considering only 7 representatives and their crew are gathered, including the duo of Eggsy and Harry. The situation doesn’t look entirely different from what Eggsy has experienced before, yet he feels quite out of place, despite there not being a reason to.

Harry notices Eggsy looking slightly out of it multiple times, and gives inquiring looks, which Eggsy reassures that he’ll be fine. They both chat with the other representatives at their table, and Eggsy tries his best to maintain his act, even as he feels his heart racing a million miles an hour. He excuses himself to use the bathroom, which Harry follows behind just a moment later.

When Harry enters the bathroom, however, he’s greeted by the sight of what seems to be a hyperventilating Eggsy.

“Sam? Sam, hey, can you hear me? You gotta come back here, Sam,” Harry urges, crouching down to hold Eggsy.

Harry realizes this just isn’t Eggsy’s element. Sure, anyone can get anxiety attacks and hyperventilate under the right situation, but Eggsy Unwin, Percival, saves all that for when the mission is over, because he’s just that good at containing himself, and these things don’t just come out so suddenly with him.

“God, Sam, what’s gotten into you? Are you back with me yet?”

Eggsy heaves a breath, holding up a trembling thumb. He allows Harry to hold him through the fallout, before standing up and washing his sweaty face, trying his best to smooth out any tardiness on him.

“You don’t have to be there if you can’t do it,” Harry reassures.

“I’ll be fine, swear down. Let’s just get this over with.”

Shuyi had just arrived as they sat back down at their table, giving the typical speech of how happy she is that everyone is here, and how excited she is about the partnerships. The longer she drones on, the more Eggsy feels restless, and he tries his very best to contain it, repeating all the self soothing techniques that he can possibly do without looking odd. Maybe he should’ve just brought a fidget spinner for the sake of it, since keeping still doesn’t seem to be much of an option as he constantly sips from the glass of water just to have something to do. 

The feast begins, and Eggsy barely has the ability to stomach the amount of food that’s being served. Thankfully, they’re all shared meals, following the local Chinese tradition of sharing food with others. Eggsy takes smaller portions for himself, and Harry jokes about him wanting to lose weight, an easy one to laugh off but also believable, despite one of the representatives telling him to ‘have a cheat day on this fine afternoon’.

Dessert is the least unberable, the sweet treat being a nice relief for Eggsy’s nausea. He takes careful bites of the grass jelly, counting down the minutes until everyone is done chattering and the final ‘course’ is served. He looks over at Harry, who’s deep in conversation with the people sitting on his side, and sighs. At least one of them is doing well.

The sound of glass clinking catches everyone’s attention, and Shuyi is standing proudly on the small podium up front. She smiles, and clears her throat.

“Everyone, this has been a long time coming. The Red Dragon has existed for a very long time, and today is the day all of you will set eyes on the very thing we have worked to create every since the first generation of leaders were in power. You are all selected as our elite partners, people who we trust to help further the Red Dragon’s agenda, and by extension, our reach. The final course of today, I present the Dragon’s Egg.”

Waiters begin pushing out carts from the door, each one with what seems to be a bottle and a stack of small plates on a larger plate. One waiter picks three capsules from the bottle, and places them into the smaller plate. Each person is served the same way, three red and yellow pills, then the bottle gets placed at the very center of the turntable.

“What you’re seeing before you is the final version of the Dragon’s Egg. We plan on releasing a white powder version in about one month, and spiking other forms of drugs with it,” Shuyi says, while walking around other tables.

Eggsy examines the capsule, and pries it apart to uncover some brown powder. It would look just like any other antibiotic, or some kind of traditional herbal medicine made into capsule form, perfect to avoid any kind of suspicion from international customs. 

“The effects of this drug is a long term one, though it goes from mild before becoming severe, and it takes around four full doses to really make it irreversible without the antidote. The symptoms are quite general, which means staying undetected until it’s too late.”

“What are those symptoms, then? You only said it would be giving people hallucinations and dependency, never told us anything else,” one of the representatives asked.

“Good question. You see, no one would question it if an addict goes just slightly insane, would they? Everyone just assumes they’re having a crash, or they’re experiencing some very normal side effects. Dragon’s Egg first will increase blood pressure, having mild effects like the ones of caffeine, acting as a bit of an energizer.”

Just then, Eggsy’s glasses crackles to life. _“Galahad, Percival, report on your status, now.”_

Harry taps the side of his glass, Morse code of an affirmative reply.

Eggsy’s focus, however, shifts back to Shuyi as she gets to their table. “Stage two would be a few anxiety issues, panic attacks and hyperventilation, just like a crash, or someone with one too many issues having a mental breakdown. Nothing really out of the ordinary, though they might want to get their lungs checked out if they have a lot of those panic attacks.”

_“I’m gonna have to ask the both of you to not eat anything. Undercover agent reported that one of Hwang’s minions have put Dragon’s Egg in its powder form in one of the desserts. We can’t be exactly sure which one, but intel suggests that they already know someone is in on this.”_

Eggsy and Harry shared a look. 

Well, they’re utterly fucked.

_“Though judging by the empty bowls, I assume it’s too late.”_

Eggsy knows where they can locate the antidotes, but it’s too risky. He purses his lips into a thin line, then goes back to listening Shuyi talk. It’s not like they can do much here.

“The final stage would be hallucinations, as mentioned. Extreme ends would be schizophrenia, and these effects will cling to them as the drug alters their brain structure entirely, and it’s only a matter of time before they either get the antidote, or walk right into their demise.”

Shuyi finishes off with a smile, and everyone gives polite applauses while some chatter begins. Eggsy on the other hand, feels way too nauseous to really even pay attention for any longer. Harry shoots him a worried look, leaning in to check in with him.

“What’s the matter?”

Eggsy groaned. “I feel like my heart won’t stop racing and the nausea is growing really strong.”

“You think you can make it past the bidding?”

“Hopefully, yeah.”

Harry pats Eggsy’s back, and sits closer to him. The bidding is going to start soon, and everyone is discussing amongst themselves.

“I’m sure you all know by now that Red Dragon is giving one batch of the drug and antidote as a show of appreciation of your loyalty towards us. Of course, one batch won’t be enough, so we’re putting our stockpile for bid! Each bid will be for 10 batches, starting at the modest price of just $25,000 in USD. Now, shall we start?”

The room goes wild in an instant, and everyone is placing bids ten times higher than the original price in a flash. Harry does most of the talking, remaining an incredibly calm demeanor while placing his bids. Eggsy distracts himself by taking in the hilarious image of a calm Harry calling out bids while one other representative keeps trying to one-up him, until the price is at $740,000, and it’s sold to Harry. The representative has a sour look on his face, and looks just about ready to strangle Harry.

They win five bids, just as planned, not having too much competition and not caring about the fact that they paid slightly higher than others for the same product. They have their plan in place, and it should only go uphill from here.

They leave for their suite as soon as the bidding and viewing ends. Eggsy had immediately rushed for the toilet the second they’re out of earshot.

“Here, let me take your coat,” Harry offered, gently holding Eggsy up straight to take off his coat before letting the man bend down into the toilet bowl for another round. He makes quick work of putting away their coats and loosening his own shirt a bit, before going back to check on Eggsy. 

Eggsy looks, for the lack of a better word, like shit. His eyes are teary, hair already mussed up, and his entire expression just screams exhaustion. Harry sits next to Eggsy, their backs leaning up against the bathtub, where Eggsy is still trying to catch his breath and come to his senses.

“Is this what people with anxiety deal with every day?” Eggsy whispers with what little energy he has left.

“I can’t say for sure, but pretty close, perhaps.”

“I feel awful, Jesus. Maybe I’m not so equipped for this after all, but we’re already here, God.”

Eggsy starts sobbing, and he buries his face into his knees as his entire body trembles. Harry rubs a comforting hand on Eggsy’s bicep, unsure of how he should proceed. It didn’t take long, and he’d just given up and pulled Eggsy’s entire body into his hold, allowing his face to be buried into his shirt instead.

Harry knows the toll taken on agents during missions. He’d seen his fair share of mental breakdowns over various missions during his years, but it feels weird to see Eggsy, Gary Unwin, the chap that Merlin brought in all those years ago who seemed like he feared nothing, and proved to be one of their best, break down like this. He supposes it’s just something that happens to the best of them, after all. He’s had his own few breakdowns, though they’re spent off active duty in the comfort and privacy of his own home.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, oh, Christ, I’m a fuckin’ mess,” Eggsy mutters. His voice had gone slightly hoarse from the crying, He tries his best to sit up, his body ultimately still leaning heavily against the bathtub behind him.

“Don’t be. Happens to the best of us. I’ll get myself cleaned up and order us some food. Think you can manage yourself a bath?”

“Right. Yeah, I hope so.”

“Let me know if you need anything, yeah?”

“Alright,” Eggsy nods.

“Also, Eggsy. Just know that there really is nothing to be sorry about, and I mean it when I say let me know if you need anything.”

Harry leaves Eggsy to have his own alone time. He quickly sheds himself of the dirty clothes and changes into clean ones. He picks up his phone, looking for good restaurants he can have a trip to, or get them to deliver here.

One look at their location meant that takeout is basically not an option. The closest restaurant is about 40 kilometres away, and it’s impossible for him to even walk that far. There’s no mode of transportation, and he’s certain he cannot be sweet talking his way through to getting one.

Harry groans. He sincerely hopes they don’t have to starve or risk themselves further, now that the threat of Red Dragon already being onto them is a known fact. 

Eggsy walks out of the bathroom only moments later, seemingly forgoing the bath and opting for a shower instead. He’s in a bathrobe, and still looking exhausted. 

“What did you order?”

“Nothing. You do know they may or may not have spiked our food earlier, right?”

“Yeah, but would they do it again?”

“We can’t risk it, Eggsy. Who knows how many doses they put in the food? We’d probably be proper dead before we can collect the cargo tomorrow,” Harry grunts into his palm.

“Oh. There’s ramen in my bag, you know?”

Eggsy slowly gets up from the bed and goes to his carry-on bag. He pulls out one five-pack of ramen, handing it to Harry.

“Figured I’d just bring some midnight snacks if we get to do our midnight sessions.”

Harry stares at the pack, then back at Eggsy, before sighing in relief. “You’re always the best man for the mission, you know that?”

“What can I say? You just can’t plan for things you don’t really know, so you just do whatever.”

“Precisely why you’re the best man for jobs like these.”

Eggsy gives a small laugh. “Ramen dinner with the telly, then?”

Harry tears open the package of ramen. “Sounds good to me.”

  
  


\----------

  
  


_20 minutes left._

_The technicians are bustling about, running their final checks. Practically everyone has changed into one of the yellow-colored special suits by now, Eggsy included. It was suffocating trying to breathe inside it, but it was the only way to make sure none of them would be affected by the core._

_Eggsy had been trying his damned hardest to blend in ever since news came 10 minutes ago. Raze was in the building, probably up on the second floor, or on the ground floor talking to the guards._

_10 minutes ago, Merlin informed him that they would be bringing in extra backup. 10 minutes ago, Eggsy was also pretty sure he would never make it out of the base alive._

_In the present, he hadn’t seen Raze in person just yet, but he was pretty goddamn sure that it would take everything in him to not just lunge at the guy. He focused on thinking about how he must do everything in his power to prevent the core from going off. He was the only agent within the building, and it would be so easy for Raze to simply activate the core right then and there if he realized Eggsy had backup._

_So staying hidden in plain sight it was._

_Eggsy had barely any idea how he was supposed to proceed. It would be way too risky to put himself that near to the core to disable it with the card while everyone retreated as the timer began. They would have two minutes to evacuate, and there simply wouldn’t be a way to sneak back unnoticed to scan the card and key in the failsafe details. Even if it would be a work of 30 seconds, it would still be hard._

_He’d still have to try regardless. There was not a lot of time to debate just how possible his attempt would be, the risk was too high to not just go for it. He held the card in his palms, pretending to be talking with his partner as they finish up the final stages of the check up._

_“Alright, all clear. Core is ready to be activated.”_

_Eggsy cursed. He steeled himself as he went through all the possibilities of events happening if he were to go for it. He needed to have a clear head, to make sure he didn’t fuck things up, but clearly his brain had other plans as he slowly descended into a downward spiral. He sucked in a breath as he looked for something else to distract him, he really couldn’t afford to panic in a situation like this._

_“So, I never actually got your name, you know.”_

_The technician walked up to Eggsy, his little partner who brought him here. He smiled at her, and was also thankful for the small distraction amidst the mess in his head._

_“Winston. You?”_

_“Call me Em. I have a feeling that’s not your real name?”_

_“I cannot confirm nor deny,” Eggsy chuckled._

_“Here, take this file. Should keep you busy. Any updates on that plan of yours yet?”_

_“One of yours gave me this ID card, said I can activate the failsafe with it. Problem is now that we know boss man is here, how weird would it look to have one single person left behind? I’m gonna have to just risk it and slither away during the evacuation. Hopefully it’ll be busy enough that no one notices I’m gone.”_

_Eggsy held up the ID card. Having said his plan out loud, he felt just a tad more confident that he could pull it off. Em gave Eggsy an approving look, while tapping away at her own tablet._

_“No helping you on that, but I wish you luck nonetheless. C’mon, prepare yourselves, we have 11 minutes.”_

_Eggsy flipped through the file in his hand. He knew by now that agents on site of other parts of the world would have been setting their plans into motion. They have agreed to disable the cores as close to each other as possible, but Eggsy had made it clear that it probably wouldn’t be possible on his end. The others have had to alter their plan to disable the core thirty seconds left on the timer at the very latest, and then leaving to the backup team to take care of the rest._

_“Do you think I can do it?”_

_Em looked up from her tablet. She gave Eggsy a look. “One way or another, I believe you can.”_

_One way or another, certainly._

  
  


_\----------_

  
  


Plans to intercept the distribution of the Dragon’s Egg in other countries are set in motion. The trackers previously planted are working perfectly, with Merlin casting the live feed for Harry to see. Their stock has been picked up as well, and ready to be turned in to the relevant authorities as a set with the other incriminating evidence.

It’s their final day in Hong Kong, and Jamie had come knocking on their door to invite the both of them for tea with Hwang Shuyi. Harry had explained that their dearest Sam is not feeling very well, but Jamie had insisted, with a knowing look on his face that made Harry realize they have officially been cornered. With practically no one on their side in this battle, they’re very much alone.

He accepted the invite, Jamie wished them a lovely evening, and that was that.

Eggsy still looked, for the lack of a better word, shit. He looked as if he had lost 5 kilos overnight, and Harry had insisted he eat two packs of ramen instead of one, as if that would also fatten him up overnight. The weight of the mission hung in the air and draped over their shoulders like deadweight, and neither of them could sleep, so they opted to raid the fridge and pretend the apple juice is bourbon, watching whatever show was on the telly, until they decide that maybe 4am is way too late and they really should be asleep.

This time around, they don’t struggle or make it awkward. Harry offers to hold Eggsy, and Eggsy shrugs and accepts it. They both sleep until Harry’s alarm wake them both at the same time. Eggsy sleeps in a little more while Harry fixes them a small breakfast of just tea. For lunch it would be back to ramen anyways, no point in wasting resources when they have a risky, but most likely pleasant teatime waiting for them.

Eggsy borrows Harry’s makeup to make himself look less sick, just a bit of foundation and some concealer to hide his exhaustion. Harry barely questions it, only telling Eggsy to not use so much of his fancy concealer, to which Eggsy scoffs, mumbling about how rich Harry is and he’s concerned about his Fenty being used.

“It’s the availability, Sam. You won’t understand.”

Eggsy rolls his eyes at that.

“How do I look, though? Any less like I just saw a ghost?”

Harry steps closer and squints at Eggsy’s face. “That bit of concealer over there’s still caked up, you might want to just… rub it in, yeah, like that.”

“All better?”

“Yes. Shall we?”

Eggsy holds up a hand, indicating they wait. He takes the suitcase he brought with him, and takes out one of the perfume bottles. He offers the other to Harry, who hesitates for a moment, before taking it with a small smile on his face.

“Mind passing me the pen as well? Could come in handy for the contracts.”

Eggsy smiles. He stuffs the perfume bottle in his coat’s inner pocket, and Harry does the same. Harry checks his watch, and counts down the seconds.

“And it’s time,” Harry says, at the same time a knock comes through their door.

Eggsy opens the door to find Jamie on the other side. No words were exchanged, just the pair closing the door and following behind Jamie. Eggsy wills himself to calm down, checks if his glasses are still transmitting, then straightens up before walking into the elevator.

They go back down to the lounge, where upon arrival, is vacant. Jamie closes the door and stands by it. Eggsy shrugs and takes a seat, propping his feet up on the coffee table, earning a disapproving glance from Harry, who sits beside him. 

“Putting your feet on the table gets you a bad marriage partner, my mother would say. Though, white people have always been quite different, right?”

Shuyi appears from another room. She approaches them, a wry smile on her face. A bottle of Dragon’s Egg is placed onto the table.

“Well we do share different values and traditions from the Chinese, yes,” Harry says.

“Correct. I assume our dear Sam here has also never tasted the traditional delicacy that is the Wife’s Biscuit.”

“You did give us a bag of it, no? From our last meeting,” Eggsy furrows his eyebrows.

“Oh, yes, I did. Now, should I just make this quick, or do you still want to draw this out?”

Eggsy and Harry give each other a look. Eggsy clears his throat and speaks. “I don’t think I quite understand, Shuyi.”

“You have quite a bit of reputation, don’t you? Other people that try to poison you but just one tiny taste, and you’d know something is up, one sip of bourbon, one crumb of toast, and you’d know it’s spiked.”

“Oh come on, out with it. We’re already here, no use in stalling and blabbering nonsense,” Harry groans, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“The white man who had never tasted a foreign delicacy, receives one from a friend and eats it for the first time. Did you notice it tasted odd? Of course not! You wouldn’t particularly know if the biscuits had anything in them, because you never tasted them,” Shuyi hisses the last part, bending to meet Eggsy’s eyes. 

“Come on, now, white man,” Shuyi whispers. “Think, use your tiny little pea brain and think, what do you think happened?”

The air shifts, it goes from tense to deadly within seconds. Eggsy is backed up into the couch, eyes staring right back into Shuyi’s. He can feel his own heartbeat starting to quicken, as he thinks about the possible answer to the question. What happened? Where did it all go wrong?

“Oh, you bastard,” Harry mutters as the realization hits him.

“The old one gets it, what about the junior?”

“I knew those little cookies tasted a tad weird,” Eggsy realizes. His heart drops at the memory, and another fear intrudes his thoughts; just how much did he have? 

“Oh, don’t call them cookies, have some respect! Those biscuits are handmade, very old recipe passed down for four whole generations, the only three shops scattered across the country always bustling with people,” Shuyi walks away, shifting her focus onto her phone instead.  
  


“What, that’s another one of your fronts, then?” Harry scoffs, crossing his arms in front of him.

“No, actually. Just a dear friend of mine who helped out a bit. Now, will you two bother to tell me your real names, or would you like me to just do… this?”

Shuyi turns her phone to show Eggsy and Harry the screen. On the screen is a live tracking feed, green dots pulsing as they slowly move through China’s airspace. There’s a timer on top, counting down to what seems to be the arrival of whatever the green dots are.

“And would you care to explain what’s this?” Eggsy asks.

“We aren’t stupid, you know. I’ve already known that the two of you aren’t who exactly you seem to say you are. I mean, come on, unlimited money, but no sound made locally? Likely story, but you do have pretty convincing evidence, but what you seem to forget is that the streets, oh the streets talk more than anyone thinks they do..”

Shuyi sits on the couch further away from the two of them, she sets down the phone on the table, and leans back.

“I sent some of our people to do a bit of sniffing around, and still, no word of any of you two, so I had my doubts, but I don’t know, I just don’t know, who are these two British men who just seem to have more money than the Queen herself, but have never made a name for themselves? I mean, I’ll gladly take the money given, that’s for sure, but why? There’s always a catch, isn’t there?”  
  


“I’d quite like to feel that you’re perhaps overthinking this, Shuyi,” Harry says.

“Oh, no, I’m not. Something is up, and I want to know what. Either you tell me who the both of you are and who sent you, or the cargo en route to the Heathrow Airport will go _boom_ , with just one signal to my team.”

“Do we have much of a choice here?”

Shuyi giggles. “Sorry, _no_. Come on now, it’s either the lives of the people on the plane, or you open your mouths, hm?”

This has been the exact situation Eggsy had been fearing. He groans, because they’re stuck, and there’s no way out in sight. It all feels like a pointless game that they fell into and have been leading them both right into a trap, leaving them running circles until they fall.

“Why don’t I cut you a deal?” Harry leans forward in his seat.

Shuyi motions for Harry to carry on.

“Let’s have an exchange of intel, perhaps? Fully transparent, no lies at all, but you tell us first, since we do have a whole lot more to lose.”

Eggsy stares at Harry, who has a sickeningly sweet smile on his face.

Shuyi considers it for a moment, and puts down her phone. “Alright, deal.”

_God fucking damn it, Galahad._

  
  


\----------

  
  


_“T-minus 3 minutes, activating core in 1 minute,” Em spoke into the walkie talkie._

_The card felt like a deadweight in Eggsy’s hands. It was now or never._

  
  


\----------

  
  


“So, shall we start?” Harry relaxes into a comfortable posture, one that Eggsy would like to question because how can he simply look so relaxed in a situation like this?

“Well, I’ve already noticed the odd things about you both. Just what exactly is your relationship? I mean, you did say you are from the same family, but different last names, so uncle and nephew? That seems the most likely answer since you two did say that. But you’re so friendly, not like lovers, but friendlier than most people with their _uncles,_ of course. But that’s just a subtle odd thing so I let it slide, unless, of course, you have no blood ties, so work acquaintances?” 

Shuyi pauses to point at the both of them, staring at Harry. He shrugs, motions for Shuyi to carry on. 

“Law enforcement have been onto us for some time, but they never got to connect anything to our mainframe, so how likely would it be to pull some kind of high profile undercover? I did my research, and my plan is to simply get the both of you to _talk_.”

“And what exactly was that plan?”

“I mean, isn’t it already clear as day? Spiking the Wife Biscuits and the dessert at the viewing, so you don’t know just how close you are to going permanently insane, and holding the threat of some human lives over you. It’s a game, Gary, you’ve just been falling into it unknowingly, and it’ll be a game that _I_ win.”

“What if there’s a different outcome? We don’t cooperate, you kill us both, what then?”

“There won’t be that outcome, because all you posh people from law enforcement have that same moral code, it’s to protect the people or whatever, that hero complex you all love so much, but you don’t realize no one lives anyway, there will be no one to stop me from killing you after you speak, and no one to stop me either when I choose to just blow up the plane,” Shuyi says in an irritated tone, scoffing at Harry, turning to look somewhere else instead. 

“I suppose you’re right. Care to say what happens after we talk, then?”

“Depends. If I’m feeling nice enough you two can just stay in this hotel, forever. Your little colleagues won’t find here anyway, and no chance I’m letting either of you out of this. If not, maybe I’ll leave the two of you… starving.”

Harry checks his watch. “Well, too bad none of this will be going your way. We’ve sort of anticipated this happening so trackers are deactivated right about now, and I have pretty damning evidence right here all recorded, so that was pretty easy getting verbal confession. Getting a criminal charge for murder conspiracy wouldn’t be too hard here, I assume.”

Shuyi reaches for her phone the second she finishes processing what Harry says, but notices the tracker has gone inactive. “No, no, what? How?”

“Thanks for the Wi-Fi, Miss Hwang. Netflix kept me pretty entertained, but it also allowed our people to have access to your internal network,” Harry smiles, waving his phone in his hand. 

Shuyi sneers. She taps on her phone, and Eggsy realizes what she’s trying to do. He stands and tries to snatch the phone, which he couldn’t do in time when Shuyi stands and gets out of the way. He pursues her, but she dodges every time. 

Eggsy draws out his gun, to which Shuyi only raises the phone screen in retaliation. There’s a timer on the screen counting down less than seven minutes, and Eggsy freezes when he realizes what it is.

“It’s already started, Sam, and I hold the power to either make it go off in an instant, or stop it entirely. The choice is yours.”

Eggsy’s palms start to sweat. He begins calculating possibilities and weighing his options, but before he could even get past the first option, Harry had already lunged forward to knock the phone out of Shuyi’s hands. Eggsy gasps as he watches Harry tackle Shuyi, and he wills himself to move to grab the phone.

Just as the phone is in Eggsy’s hands, he hears a gun cock, and he freezes as he realizes there’s a fourth person in the room. 

“Oh, come on,” Eggsy groans, rolling his eyes as he turns to face Jamie.

Jamie motions for Eggsy to drop the phone, but Eggsy refuses. He raises his gun to point at Jamie as well, both of them locked in a staring contest. It isn’t until Jamie fires his first shot -- which he missed -- that Eggsy makes a run for it. He tries to knock the gun out of Jamie’s hand, but isn’t quick enough as Jamie starts firing more shots that hit the wall behind Eggsy instead of anywhere on him.

One bullet does hit his jacket, which bounces off and hits the lamp somewhere above instead. Jamie, realizing the predicament, ditches the gun and lunges forward towards Eggsy instead, tackling the both of them to the ground, fighting to stay on top and get a hold of the phone that’s slowly ticking down the seconds to the detonation. 

Meanwhile, Harry struggles in a headlock from Shuyi, which he manages to set himself free from by first curling his body upwards, then using the force and weight of his body to get the both of them back onto the ground, leaving Shuyi to free him. Her quick reflexes gets Harry before he could tackle her back down. She pushes him away, and then delivers a quick punch to his gut that sends him stumbling backwards. 

Harry groans, as he tries to toggle the watch for a stun needle, but is instead pushed up towards a wall, with Shuyi’s hands firmly on his throat. He holds in his breath, and tries to coordinate his body to just work with him as he toggles his watch. He doesn’t manage to hit her even as he shoots it, because Shuyi backs away right on time, and Harry tries to use what little time he has to catch his breath. 

When Harry looks up, Shuyi is running towards him with one of the giant ceramic vases in the room, and Harry only barely managed to dodge it when the vase hits the wall. A piece manages to slice his cheek, and he hisses slightly as he realizes the wound is bleeding. Shuyi picks a piece of the broken ceramic off the floor and runs towards Harry again, which Harry only barely managing to keep her off of him. Shuyi kicks one of Harry’s feet, sending him off balance and the both of them on the ground again, Shuyi on top, with the tip of the sharp broken ceramic right on Harry’s eye that’s straining to be kept away by Harry.

The phone suddely slides towards where Harry and Shuyi are fighting, and Shuyi instantly tries to reach for it. Harry grabs Shuyi’s shirt collar and yanks her away, sending her toppling over on the other side, while Harry grabs it.

Before Harry is able to get up, he screams as sharp pain shoots through his left abdomen. He looks over and sees the piece of broken ceramic now pierced through his shirt, left uncovered by his suit while he’s rolled over to grab the phone. With Harry temporarily paralyzed, Shuyi makes her move to grab the phone.

Eggsy hears the scream, and sees the broken ceramic piece and the slowly expanding patch of red blood on white shirt. He turns back to where he was still blocking Jamie’s hands from reaching his throat, and pushes the guy away from him entirely. He reaches for the gun on the floor, and wastes no time in firing one, two and a third shot right in Jamie’s head and chest. 

With Jamie positively lifeless and bleeding out on the floor, Eggsy turns to where Harry and Shuyi are, gun held up as he prepares to fire. He freezes as he sees Shuyi just cocking her gun that’s aimed at Harry, as she’s looking back at Eggsy, face dark, while the phone is in her hands.

The situation becomes clear to Eggsy, and he can only suck in a breath as he watches Shuyi type in something in the phone. When the screen is turned back at him, there’s 45 seconds left on the clock, and Eggsy feels his heart drop.

“I’m sick of your little spy games, Kingsley, so I’m gonna make you play mine. Now, either you let your old pal here die an early death, or let the clock do its thing. Come on now, don’t be boring.”

There’s an edge of darkness and humor in Shuyi’s voice, sickeningly sweet but with the intent to harm. Eggsy can’t help but feel intimidated by it. He tries listening for anything from Merlin, from literally anyone that’s seeing his transmission, but nothing comes. The timer is at 32 seconds and counting down, and Eggsy curses, racking his brain for a way to not compromise anyone’s life in the situation.

“Eggsy,” Harry calls, groaning weakly.

Eggsy snaps his head to look at Harry.

“You’ll have to trust me, is that alright? Just stop the plane, it’s okay.”

“I’m not letting you die just like that, are you crazy?” Eggsy yells, growing more frantic as he sees the timer down to 25 seconds.

Harry looks Eggsy dead in the eye, and yells. “Trust me!”

Eggsy looks between Shuyi and Harry, and groans out loud. “God, fine! Stop the timer first, now!”

Shuyi smiles. She starts to type on her phone, presumably to shut down the explosives entirely. Eggsy sweats, time passing extremely slowly as she works on the phone. Everything in that moment moves in slow motion too, because Eggsy only realizes that Harry has gotten up from the floor when he’s already making his way towards Shuyi, which she also belatedly realizes, eyes going wide as she tries to aim her gun at his head.

The sound of a gunshot brings the normal flow of time back, and Eggsy is too in shock as he tries to process the fact that Shuyi’s finger pulled back on the trigger. He takes five seconds to even see that Harry has forced the gun to shoot elsewhere, and that elsewhere happens to go right into his flesh, just a little to the right of his tie, where the suit has also failed to protect from. 

Eggsy barely notices it, but he realizes that Harry had emptied a stun needle from the watch and stabbed it into Shuyi’s neck instead.

It’s only when the both of them fall down onto the ground that Eggsy snaps himself back, grabbing the phone from Shuyi’s hands. He throws the phone away as soon as he’s absolutely sure that the timer is down and the bombs are deactivated, rushing towards Harry instead.

“What the fuck were you even thinking?” Eggsy all but yells, loosening his tie and looping it under Harry’s body, forming a quick makeshift bandage to put pressure on the bullet wound and limiting the bleeding.

“I barely did,” Harry heaves violently, the shock of the gunshot passing, pain hitting him full force. “Just took… a bit of something you did a while back.”

“No, no, none of that, shut up, stay with me now, you moron,” Eggsy mumbles frantically as he finishes off the bandage knot.

“It’s all good, Eggsy. I’ll be fine.”

“NO! Just stay with me, I’m not having any of this right now, Harry. None of this shit was in the plan and I’m not about to let this all fall apart like this.”

“You did well, Eggsy. It’s alright, everything will be fine.”  
  
“It clearly won’t be if you’re like this,” Eggsy sobs weakly. 

“You remember the Kingsman motto, Eggsy?”

Eggsy scoffs. “Of course I fucking do, you lot had us memorizing that on the first fucking day of training.”

“What you did in Phuket is no different than this, Eggsy. Everything will be fine because you trusted me. Red Dragon is no more, we did it.”

“It ain’t gonna be ‘we did it’ if you’re not in the ‘we’, god damn it,” Eggsy cries.

They have no backup, and they’re at fuck knows where. HQ hasn’t been in touch, neither did Merlin. Eggsy feels utterly helpless, almost like he did in Phuket, while his consciousness fades into darkness, except that he didn’t have that much time to feel helpless before he was knocked out.

“It’s okay Eggsy, it’s not your fault, not in Phuket, not here either.”

Eggsy sighs in defeat and sniffles as he wipes his face. “It sure as hell feels like it now.”

  
  
  


\----------

  
  


_None of this was in the plan for the mission, yet here he stood before Raze._

_The core was deactivated, until Eggsy got punched square in the jaw. The core got reactivated while he’s still trying to steady himself as he stood up, and when he got a look at the person who punched him, his heart dropped as he realized who it was._

_There was a fight, of course there was, but it was mostly Eggsy trying his damned hardest to not get knocked back down on his ass, while also trying to find a window of opportunity to take down Raze as well. Raze, being bigger in size than Eggsy, naturally had the advantage, and was able to weaken Eggsy considerably,_

_“I knew all you little business fancy spies were gonna camp out at the big ones, so I’m not letting at least one not go off successfully, and just so happened that you don’t exactly have backup, do you?”_

_Eggsy groaned as he recovered from the punch to his gut, which was a bit too close to his ribs and he was pretty sure at least one of them were fractured. “And you think we aren’t trained to be able to take you down solo?”_

_“I’d say you’re probably the lucky one that got through all that training, but the weakest of the bunch,” Raze laughed, and delivered a punch to Eggsy’s face._

_Eggsy stumbled back until he leaned against the main body of the core. The hazmat suit was doing absolutely nothing at shielding him from the attacks, yet it would probably be the one thing preventing him from dying once the generator went off._

_“I’d say you’re wrong then,” Eggsy said, and then charged back towards Raze with a yell._

_Raze still held the advantage in size, so it was easy to simply hold Eggsy away long enough until he was too weak to continue pushing in. A cheap jab to Eggsy’s jaw was enough to knock him back into the core’s main body, while he barely had the energy to keep himself standing up._

_“Time’s ticking, agent weakest-of-the-bunch, maybe you should just accept that your little mission is failing,” Raze laughed._

_Eggsy turned to see the time left on the countdown, and paled when he realized he had less than 30 seconds on the clock. He groaned, there was no way he could do anything in time if Raze was going to just carry him like a bag of rice and throw him across the room, and he had practically nothing that could even help him in the slightest._

_A glimpse of the clipboard left forgotten on the control panel gave Eggsy a tiny spark of revelation. He desperately searched his memory for the plans on the structure of the entire core, and managed to find a pipe with a small enough valve he could mess with._

_Eggsy pretended to have a dizzy spell, stumbling over to where he could be as close to the valve as possible, and sat down near it. Raze was still looking at him with a grin on his face, challenging him to come for him once more. Eggsy needed to buy some time, as he located the correct valve and began turning it._

_“Fine, you fucking win, I guess. But you know what, at least my side got all those others, so technically we win. I guess you could say this is just a minor inconvenience, we’ll clear this mess up soon enough.”_

_“Oh, but will you? Who are you to say I don’t have the power to stop all of you? You do know that I have that power, don’t you?”_

_“I do, and I think you can if you tried hard enough. Too bad none of that is happening, though.”_

_With one last push, Eggsy was positive the valve was closed, and he would be able to, at the very least, disable the core permanently. He made his break, dashing right before Raze, and running as far away as possible from the core._

_Two seconds left on the clock, and Raze was looking at Eggsy in shock, while only just realizing what Eggsy had just done as he spotted the faulty pipe._

_The rest was practically a blur to Eggsy, as he felt the impact of his actions before he could hear it. The blast of the core exploding knocked Eggsy off his feet as he got pushed by the waves. Heat burned right through the material of his hazmat suit, then the falling debris lit in bright flames hitting his head, and then his ears ringing as he hit the ground._

_Once Eggsy hit the ground, more debris rained upon him, yet he could never expect a giant piece of broken metal piercing right through his body, entering from the left side of his back. The shock from the entire situation was enough to keep Eggsy occupied, yet as he willed himself to calm down, he could feel everything again. Pain shot through him, and the ringing in his ears was louder than ever. He could hear the building collapsing behind him, and whatever remained of the blast fizzling out beside him._

_The last of what he could hear was someone yelling at him from his glasses, probably Merlin, before he smiled, and closed his eyes._

_“I saved the world, lads.”_

_With one last puff of breath, he gave in to darkness._

  
  


_\----------_

  
  


There’s a weird sort of air hanging in the Kingsman HQ after the Red Dragon mission. It has always been this way after most huge missions, with half of the agents taking time off, while the other half barely had any spirit as they went about their mundane tasks, mostly being paperwork. 

Eggsy himself has been camping out at the medbay wing ever since he got back from Hong Kong. The medical staff emptied out a spare room for him to sleep in, though he insists that he’s fine catching his rest on the benches outside. It was the head nurse who managed to force him to just take the room and sleep properly there, knowing that there’s no use to convince Eggsy to go back to his own home regardless.

Harry is fine, of course he is. He’s put in a brief sedative state for him to sleep through the worst of the pain, though Eggsy doesn’t really like it. He hates that Harry looks lifeless even though he’s completely fine, and he hates that the sedative state is going to be for days instead of just hours, or one single day at most. 

Besides the bullet wound and some blood loss, Harry is okay. Backup had arrived with local law enforcement and a medical team. Blood was pumping back into Harry’s veins as they flew out on a helicopter to the nearest hospital. 

Eggsy distinctly remembers him sitting through his health inspection while asking about Harry after every test, to which the doctor merely sighed and reassured him that he is fine. The unsettling feeling still remained, until he completed his inspection and was allowed to go wait outside the surgery room. 

Roxy was there to pick them up the very next day, with their own medical team taking over as they arranged for their journey back home. Eggsy was knocked out cold after Roxy gave him some tea and blankets, exhaustion getting the better of him. The journey back home was just as tiring as the one they took from home, and Eggsy slept through most of it, only waking up to get some food in his system, and check on Harry. 

Eggsy is still recovering from the post-mission tremors even four days after he’s carried out by one of the backup agents. He couldn’t stand still four days ago, but he still has a bit of jelly limbs, so he considers it an improvement, but he hates it and wishes it to be gone right now.

While no arrangements were made, Arthur had just given Eggsy permission to be off duty without him asking for it. Merlin doesn’t burden him with the further cleanup details of the mission, and Roxy comes by every meal time with food containers in hand. They both share a meal in a tiny spot in Harry’s room, Roxy telling Eggsy all about her newly adopted kitten, and how cute it is when the kitten sleeps curled up on her dog’s body.

“He had the worst anxiety during the first few hours of coming home, but Woonie was willing to just let him like, chill a little, you know? Next thing I know, they’re in a stack, curled up, sleeping!”

Roxy’s enthusiasm and her many pictures of the new kitten helps to keep Eggsy’s spirits up, yet he can’t help but glance over at the bed every so often. Roxy notices, and she smiles in understanding as she turns to glance at where Harry is too.

With a sigh, Roxy reaches over to place a hand on Eggsy’s shoulder. “Hey, you did well, you know that? It’s just an injury, just like any other mission, you know?”

“Yeah. Just, I never expected Harry to do something like this, and what if something else went wrong? This was just a bullet wound and some blood loss, who the fuck knows if something else like, I don’t know, the gun being aimed at his face instead?”

“Eggsy,” Roxy laughs.

“What? You think I’m stupid, don’t you?”

“Yes, because you always are,” Roxy rolls her eyes at that. “Sure, there are probably a million ways this could’ve gone down, but this happened, and it’s all that matters, isn’t it?”

Roxy offers a gentle smile, and Eggsy can only sigh. He knows Roxy is right, and he’s been telling himself the same things too, but his brain refuses to listen. 

“Yeah, I guess it is, just gotta work on that brain thing,” Eggsy laughs dryly, finishing what’s left in his container. 

“Good,” Roxy gives an approving grin. “C’mon, help me clean these up before the nurse comes in.”

Merlin comes by once, and he checks in on Eggsy. They talk, but not much about the mission, mostly about Harry, and mostly Merlin doing the talking. The nurse had to come in and remind them to lower their volume more than once, and only Eggsy looked half as sheepish as he should, while Merlin merely pursed his lips and dipped his head in apology. 

“I’m just happy he held himself together during a situation like that, I don’t think he usually does,” Merlin comments.

“He doesn’t. More of a plans guy, hates me for going all on my own all the damn time apparently.”

“That he does,” Merlin agrees, shifting in his seat to face Eggsy better. “You know what else he also hates? Shitty plans. We’ve had plenty of missions in the past with plans that sucked horse arse just because no one was able to come up with something decent, and usually you are the one to really save it.”

“Yeah I really doubt I saved this one at all,” Eggsy chuckles dryly.

“Look, point is, both of you make a great team. I doubt any of our agents could work in a pair like you two, and somehow the both of you always make great results in shitty situations. Just don’t worry too much about it now, alright? It’s all in the past now, you owe no one nothing, get some rest.”

Eggsy falls silent. He glances at Harry, then back at Merlin, and smiles. “Yeah, don’t think neither of us could’ve made it out of there alive if it wasn’t for him.”

“Don’t forget about your effort, Eggsy. It’s all good work, don’t doubt yourself. I’ll see about getting the both of you two some off duty time with Arthur once Harry wakes. “

Merlin stands to leave, and Eggsy gives him a cheeky mock salute. He shifts his attention back to Harry, wonders if he’s even ready to face the man. He cringes at himself internally, because why would he not be ready? It’s not like the mission went south, or he did something wrong, or Harry was out cold for a whole year.

Eggsy wills himself to calm down. He gives himself a pep talk, reassuring himself that things are going great, and it will be tomorrow that Harrry will wake up, and they can just talk it out since everything is already in the past. He’ll be fine.

Except that he doesn’t feel fine. He knows it’s just his brain doing a stupid thing, and the only way to stop that is get reassurance from seeing Harry awake and fine. It feels dumb, but Eggsy supposes it’s just how feelings work, when you care so much about someone.

Maybe along the way, Eggsy had realized just how much he cares about Harry, and in a more than agents-assigned-together-on-a-deadly-mission way. The catalyst had been Hong Kong, and Eggsy hates himself a bit for coming to that revelation so late. 

Eggsy decides that humans are stupid, so are feelings. Feelings are definitely stupid. He sighs and stands up, leaving the room for the night. Maybe he’ll feel better after things wash over tomorrow.

  
  


\----------

  
  


_When Harry saw the scene before him, he had allowed his instincts to take over. First, it was to instruct his team to break off and sweep the place, next, it was to make sure there was no threat towards them. It was only when he was absolutely sure that the place was safe, that he started his own search for their agent._

_Harry could hear his own breaths and heartbeat in the hazmat suit. His hands were sweating, and his gun would’ve slipped out of his hands by then if it wasn’t for the gloves he had on. He scanned the entire place, searching for any sign of Eggsy’s body._

_It was when one of their agents yelled out for Harry that he immediately took off. The agent was already on their comms, urging for the medical team to arrive swiftly. Harry dropped onto the ground, not daring to touch any part of Eggsy’s body, fearing that any kind of touch would only cause more harm._

_Harry instructed the others to continue sweeping their surroundings, until the helicopter arrived. He stayed by Eggsy’s side, heart aching even more as he took in the sight of Eggsy._

_The hazmat suit on Eggsy was tattered, then there was the piece of debris sticking through him. He could read Eggsy’s vitals on his glasses, but it was weak, and quite unstable. He hated that he couldn’t touch Eggsy, couldn’t even make sure that he was okay, because he clearly wasn’t. Things wouldn’t get any better either if Harry messed with anything, so he stayed in mission-mode, keeping himself composed._

_The sound of the helicopter’s arrival was the only thing Harry remembered before everything started blending together. He didn’t remember the way he screamed when Eggsy’s vitals went haywire, nor the way he almost badly injured one of the medical staff at the local hospital when Eggsy flatlined for a solid ten seconds. If you were to ask Harry to list the events that happened in order those few days after the mission, he’d probably confuse the time he sat by Eggsy’s unconscious body happening the same day as when he almost punched a doctor in the face because he heard that Eggsy was still in a critical state 15 hours after he was brought back from the mission._

_Eggsy was out cold for a full week, and Harry had felt so bad for both Eggsy and himself that he had drowned himself in paperwork and cleanup missions. Merlin refused to assign Harry anything more, so it was just mounds of paperwork that needed to be filed away, keeping him busy. All of this work, just so he would be too tired at the end of the day to really think about anything else, and just fall asleep._

_Work, sleep, work, sleep. It’s somewhat of a routine that Harry quickly falls into._

_Merlin had attempted to get him off duty, but Harry had practically begged him not to, and they both had to compromise, with Harry only working half the time in HQ, and the rest would be his off time. He’d spent the time mostly at the gym, working out and sparring, then sleeping at an awfully early hour, sometimes skipping dinner. The long sleep hours gave him a headache, but that was the least of his concerns._

_Time seemed to work differently in this state, because for the next two months, he had shut himself out from the world, and it was only when Merlin practically dragged him out of the house that Harry even went to a different place that wasn’t his office, his bedroom, or the gym._

_Merlin brought him to Eggsy’s room in the medical wing, and he looked just as surprised as Eggsy as he walked through the room. Roxy was there, and the both of them looked like they were just in the middle of a game on the Switch. Merlin was the one to break the silence, moving forward to loudly greet Eggsy, and Harry broke out of his daze, following in Merlin’s trail._

_The awkward tension between Harry and Eggsy hung in the air, and it was pretty clear to Roxy and Merlin too. Merlin decided to leave with Roxy, allowing the two to have the space to talk, but Harry couldn’t even bring himself to do so._

_Seeing Eggsy in front of him, still wearing that awful gown and that ugly IV tube attached to him, was better than anything he could’ve hoped for, yet the worst too. He was glad, absolutely relieved that Eggsy is fine, yet he would’ve absolutely lost it if it were any other way._

_The conflicting emotions waging war in Harry’s brain didn’t show on his face, but Eggsy still knew something was up. He wondered if it was him, if Harry finally came here to yell in his face, but he also sort of expected for the both of them to just sit in silence, maybe calmly talk a bit. As much as he’d been a bit scared to see Harry, he still missed his partner._

_Harry could see the worry in Eggsy’s face, so he sighed and decided to speak._

_“Look, I’m not mad, alright? Merlin told me you think I’m mad.”_

_“I do, yeah.”_

_Harry paused. Hearing the admission from Eggsy’s own mouth felt entirely different. “I mean it, I’m not mad, just still processing this whole thing.”_

_Before Harry could fully finish his sentence, Eggsy cut in. “You wanna hear the story of what I did?”_

_Harry blinked. “Sorry, what?”_

_“Y’know what, fuck it. I’m telling you what I did back there, because no one knows and I think you should be the first since you were my backup.”_

_Harry didn’t have the time to say anything, and Eggsy was rattling off the events that preceded which landed him to where he was. It was simple, straight to the point explanation, and Eggsy explained it like it was nothing, like he was just explaining a random fact to someone who didn’t know about it. He looked at Harry when he was done, searching his face for any sign of approval, or lack thereof, or a third opinion even._

_It was silent for a full minute as Harry tried to play out the events as described in his head, and he understood. He had already understood it before Eggsy had even needed to describe it, and he didn’t necessarily need the explanation as to why he had made that split-second decision to intentionally explode the core so it wouldn’t be able to power the main mechanism that would spread the fungi to all plants within range._

_“Eggsy, I need you to understand that I’m not mad at you, none of us are. I’m mad at me, for not noticing that your activity was odd, thus failing to move backup any faster to prevent any of this from happening.”_

_Harry sighed as he rubbed his palms against his face. He knew Eggsy was going to think somehow all this was his fault, but he failed to acknowledge that and instead buried his feelings so that he wouldn’t have to face any of them._

_“But, I still think there was something else that can be done.”_

_Eggsy squeezed his eyes shut at that comment. He was out of ideas to make Harry even fully understand. Truth was, Harry fully understood, he was just trying to justify his feelings, and doing an absolutely shitty job at it._

_Harry knew how urgent the situation was, and he knew he would’ve done something similar in that situation. He wasn’t about to insult Eggsy’s combat skills, because he knew Eggsy was more than capable, but he was grasping blindly at something to blame his feelings for, blaming the way he still felt upset at what Eggsy did, at what almost cost him his life._

_“I don’t exactly know what else to say to you, honestly,” Eggsy mumbled._

_“It’s fine. It’s not your fault.”_

_“I still think it is, because I feel like you do too.”_

_“I don’t, Eggsy.”_

_“Fine, whatever you say.”_

_Eggsy laid back down on his bed, careful movements and groaning slightly in pain as he tried to get comfortable. He was laying on his side, facing away from Harry, clearly not wanting the conversation to continue. Harry took his cue and left after a few moments._

_He felt even worse than before, and something nagging at the back of his mind was telling him how much of an asshole he was, but he ignored all of that and went back to his office to bury himself back in the pile of work._

  
  
  


\----------

  
  
  


Eggsy is the first to see Harry when he wakes up.

The whole thing is pretty anticlimactic, if you were to ask Eggsy. He just walked in right after the doctor allowed him to, and there Harry is. Granted, he looks just as good as anyone who’s in a hospital bed, but at least he’s awake and conscious, probably the best Eggsy can ever hope for.

They don’t really talk, with Harry still coming to his senses slowly, and barely acknowledging Eggsy’s presence. Eggsy merely sat beside him, waiting for the silence to break. The silence lasts until Roxy comes into the room, lunch for three in her hands. Harry greets Roxy, and Roxy mock-whispers as she tells Harry that she snuck in some spicy noodles in all the seemingly healthy takeout, while Harry gives her a rather disapproving look, but eats whatever’s brought to him anyway.

When Roxy asks how Harry is doing, he shrugs. “Feels just as good as someone who got shot, you could say.”

“So, perfect, and ready to be back on your feet then?” 

“Oh, I certainly hope so, though I’m fairly certain Merlin would insist on me being off active duty for at least three months, while I would argue for just one.”

“He does make quite a solid case, you know. What’s so bad about a three month vacation?”

Harry smiles at that, having quickly learned that laughing of any kind would hurt him. He notices Eggsy just lurking while sitting on the couch just to the left of his bed, having been pretty much a silent observer ever since he woke up.

“And what about you, Eggsy? How are you?”

Eggsy shrugs. “I’m alright.”

Harry puts on his ‘I-know-what-that-look-on-your-face-means’ look, and Eggsy hates it. He hates how easily Harry can see through him, so he rolls his eyes and sighs.

“Fine, yes, I’m still all up on the mission. Just relieved that you’re okay and all.”

The Look goes away from Harry’s face, and is instead replaced with a look of understanding. He doesn’t comment on it, and instead turns back to his food, like everything is fine.

The inevitable conversation doesn’t come just yet, and Eggsy feels torn with emotions. He’s dying to just talk it out, and maybe be able to feel better after it, but talking is also hard, because he’s forced to face all these memories and feelings and he’s dead afraid of saying something wrong that might hurt the both of them. 

Maybe do something stupid like boldly admitting he has feelings that go beyond ‘mission buddies’. 

It does come after, when Merlin stopped by to check in on all of them, then running back out less than 10 minutes later, probably busy with the cleanup, and Roxy leaving to get back to work afterwards.

Harry is the one to break the silence first. “I would assume, judging by my past experience with you, that you’re doing that self-blaming thing again.”

“I will neither confirm nor deny,” Eggsy stretches his lips into a line, arms folding as he begins to feel just a tad defensive.

“I have a feeling that you won’t be doing that after you hear what i have to say.”

Eggsy shrugs, and gestures for Harry to continue.

“Before I start, I’d like to apologize.”

“For?”

“I was pretty much, for a lack of a better word, an asshole in Phuket while you were recovering. I know full well that you had essentially no other way out, and I still insisted that you do, while not being in the situation myself.”

“Right. Okay, yeah. Apology accepted. Go on.”

Harry sighed. “Listen, Eggsy, I’ll tell you just this once. This has never been, and will never be, your fault. If you do think it’s your fault, i will think that this is my fault too, so it’s best for the both of us if we just don’t go down that spiral.”

Eggsy nods. 

“I feel like if I explain why I was an asshole back then it might help you feel better too. It’s pretty simple really, I just have some romantic feelings for you.”

“Sorry what?”

“Okay, right. Essentially, I was quite upset, but not actually at your actions. I was just upset that I almost lost you, and in an effort to bury my feelings, I acted the way I did.”

The way Harry said everything feels like he’s been thinking about it a lot, and Eggsy doesn’t know for sure, because there’s no way he thought about all this having just woken up only a few hours ago.

More importantly, Harry Hart just boldly admitted he has feelings for Eggsy that go beyond ‘mission buddies’, and Eggsy is hit square in the face by that admission. 

How is he supposed to respond to that?  
  


“I don’t expect you to return those feelings, just wanted to get that out the way, because I’ve been meaning to tell you that for quite some time now.”

“Wait, hold on, quite some time, so how long exactly?”

Eggsy waits with bated breath, while Harry gulps. “Just under one year.”

_Oh._

Harry looks at Eggsy, and tries to maintain that eye contact but ultimately fails to, eyes darting back to where he was staring at his blanket. “Yes, that. So, as I was saying-”

“You managed to keep this to yourself for one whole year?”

Eggsy stared at Harry in disbelief. He can barely keep himself calm, his entire body radiating with energy that’s just waiting to burst. 

“Yes,” Harry nods.

“God fucking damn it Harry if it wouldn’t hurt you I’d most probably be kissing you right now.”

Silence hangs in the air as the both of them stare at each other. Eggsy is the one to break eye contact, turning to huff in disbelief as he continues to process the fact that Harry likes him the way he does to him too. 

“Well, at least we got that out of the way, yeah? Maybe we should continue talking, save that for later,” Harry suggests, smile on his face as he looks at Eggsy.

“Right, yeah. Sure, okay, continue then.”

They talk, and Eggsy feels lighter the more they do. It feels good to just really look back at their mission as a pair, reassure each other that things went the way they did and it all turned out alright. It almost feels like therapy, except there’s more understanding to it when some words aren’t spoken, or some events left unsaid.

There’s a gentle, fond look on Harry’s face when they’re talking, a thing that Eggsy noticed. He can’t help but feel just a little bit flustered by it, because he doesn’t know if he’s doing it too. It’s not a bad thing, it looks nice when Harry has it, but he’s positive he would look like an absolute fool if he had that same look on his face. It’s the same look those people in the movies would have, and Eggsy sort of doesn’t believe it’s real, but who is he to not believe his own eyes?

The gentle lull of the conversation continues to dinnertime, when Roxy, Merlin, and a few of the other Kingsman agents come through the door, greeting Harry and wishing him well. While Harry is occupied with the others, Roxy finds Eggsy, and gives him an eyebrow raise. Eggsy giggles lightly, and shrugs, with a grin on his face.

Roxy goes over to stand by Eggsy, arms crossed in front of her. “How good are we talkin’?”

“Better than anyone could ever expect,” Eggsy says, then proceeds to hold up two fingers and wiggles them.

Roxy narrows her eyes at that. “No, you’re kidding. This better not mean what I think you mean.”

Eggsy shakes his head, his smile splitting into a grin when Roxy looks at him in disbelief. She hugs Eggsy, and presses a kiss to his forehead, to which he cringes in mock disgust. Eggsy glances over to where Harry is still chatting with the others, and Roxy mouths ‘lovesick fool’ at him. He playfully jabs at her, and they laugh, trying to stay quiet while doing so.

After the agents leave, Eggsy, Harry, Roxy and Merlin have dinner together in Harry’s room, much to the nurses’ disapproval. Eggsy put on his best puppy eyes while asking, and eventually the nurses couldn’t bear to say no, and allowed them. 

‘Just this once,’ the nurse said, but everyone knew that there’s a next time coming.

Eggsy sits on the end of Harry’s bed while he eats, and there’s a knowing look that Merlin has on him throughout dinner. They talk like normal, sure, but he glances between Eggsy and Harry, or at least that’s what Eggsy thinks. He may or may not be overthinking it, imagining Merlin’s looks to be more than what they seem to be.

Eggsy’s suspicions are proven to be true afterwards. Merlin asks if Harry had worked things out with Eggsy, and instead of verbally confirming anything, Harry takes Eggsy’s hand and holds it between his own. 

“Well, I was right,” Merlin claps his hands, laughing while Eggsy turns five different shades of red. Harry smiles softly, and Roxy whoops.

Eggsy tries to get a hold of himself. “H-How did you know?”

“Eggsy, my lad, you were looking at Harry the whole time just now. Thought I wouldn’t notice something’s up just because you’re off in a corner with Roxy?”

“I bet Merlin has that Mentor’s bond with you too, knows what’s up with you all the time,” Roxy chimes in.

Eggsy can’t argue with any of them, so he chooses to laugh in agreement. He takes Harry’s hands that are holding his own, and presses a kiss on top. 

“Well, you guessed right. I’m pretty happy with what we have right now.”

There’s an air of happiness shared in the room, and Eggsy feels perfectly content to share it with the man he likes and two of the most important people in his life. The warm and fuzzy feeling in his gut proves that, and it couldn’t be any more perfect.

“I can say the same,” Harry agrees.

Eggsy grins.

  
  


\----------

_“I just don’t know why. I know the whole thing, and I know he had no choice, but I still feel angry at what he did. I don’t exactly know why I am being such an ass about this.”_

_Harry stared at the ceiling, laying on the recliner sofa as he talked his feelings out. His therapist sat just opposite of him, taking notes on his tablet every so often, listening intently to all that Harry had to say._

_“And what did you do after that visit?”_

_“Oh, I was just back to the usual,” Harry shrugged. “Just work, really. Merlin was a menace and forced me to take half the days off, so I’d just spend that time in the gym, or go home and sleep. I slept at around 7 or 8 in the evening, real bad headaches afterwards.”_

_The therapist nodded. It was silent for a moment, before the therapist shifted in his seat._

_“What do you think about him? Eggsy Unwin, what’s he like?”_

_“Well, he’s a great agent. We never really got along, but he’s always really good when we’re together on missions. I don’t actually hate it when we’re paired together, truth be told. He’s, um, he’s nice, I suppose.”_

_“What does ‘nice’ entail?”_

_“Just about anything, really. He’s quite charming, real smart, pretty smooth. He’s kind, always welcomes any new recruits and does his best to make them feel comfortable. He loves animals, always dragging me to that sanctuary just outside of the city whenever we’re both free. He did throw me that surprise birthday party once, and that’s quite pleasant. Whenever he talks it’s just pleasant, he has that way to be charming without trying, and whenever we’re bickering he’s quite funny too. So, yeah, he’s quite nice.”_

_The therapist smiles. “I think I have a pretty safe bet on why you’re acting the way you do with Eggsy’s mission.”_

_“Oh, do tell.”_

_“You care about him. I don’t dare to say if it’s strictly platonic or involves any romance at all, but I think that is for you to find out. All I can say is that you care a lot about him, and it’s okay to feel angry, because you were angry that he almost died there.”_

_Oh. So that’s what it is, huh. Harry felt a little lighter as the revelation dawned upon him._

_“But, it isn’t okay that you directed that anger at him. You will have to make amends, one way or another.”_

_“Right, that,” Harry sighs. “Not exactly sure when, but I definitely will apologize soon.”_

_“It’s best you do it before the Red Dragon mission brings the two of you closer to the frontlines again. Try doing it during a less busier day, when the both of you aren’t as stressed out.”_

_“I’ll definitely try. Thank you.”_

_“Very well,” the therapist smiles. “Shall we move on, then?”_

  
  


\----------

  
  


The sound of a grenade going off comes a little later than the impact itself, and Eggsy doesn’t move until he’s absolutely sure no one is shooting at him. He peeks out from where he’s hiding, and a gun immediately fires, his head retreating back just as quick.

Eggsy groans. “Hey Merlin, care to like, get me some help before I get shot in the face?”

_“Backup is coming soon. Just try to hold off on your own while you can, yeah? How’s the leg?”_

“Fuckin’ hurts, I’ll tell ya that. Try walking on a broken leg yourself,” Eggsy spits out, while he pops out of his hiding spot for a few quick fires before ducking back down.

_“Believe it or not, I have, back when I was doing field.”_

Eggsy fights the urge to roll his eyes. “I’m here about to die, Merlin, either give me some words of comfort or stop bragging.”

Laughter filters through the line. _“Alright, none of that anymore. Backup’s in, prepare yourselves.”_

Eggsy hears it, the sounds of agents rushing in, and gunshots ringing as the enemy goons are taken down. He groans as he pops back out of where he was hiding, and catches sight of one person standing just at the entrance, staring right back at him.

“Goddammit, Galahad.”

“Hello, Percival. Was 2 months down here fun?”

“Not a single second more,” Eggsy accepts the kiss as Harry crouches down. He holds onto Harry’s suit as he’s lifted off the ground on Harry’s shoulder.

“Christ, Galahad. You been working out while I was gone?”

“That obvious? I thought I was slacking off,” Harry huffs.

“Mmm, you’re not. Wanna like, show me some new experiences with that hot bod?”

“Not the time, Percival.”

Eggsy laughs. “Fine, fine. I love you, say it back.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “I love you, too.”

_“If you two lovebirds don’t get your arses out of there right now, I’m flying this chopper off without you.”_

**Author's Note:**

> yes all those subtle references are intentional. no im not sorry bc i literally wrote this fully with self indulgence in mind
> 
> thanks for reading! truly hope you enjoyed this, really appreciate comments and kudos if you'd like to <3 if any amis are still here feel free to check out my other works lmao borahae ami <3


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